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Purpose: Reddit is a social media platform that allows health care professionals (HPs) to anonymously interact with patients. We analyzed content about radiation therapy (RT) on Reddit. Methods and Materials: Reddit.com/r/cancer was queried with 20 search terms related to RT: IMRT, 3D-CRT, SBRT, EBRT, XRT, radiation, radiotherapy, RT, radio, rad, rads, gamma, gamma knife, gammaknife, cyber knife, cyberknife, cyber, brachytherapy, brachy, and cobalt. The search aimed to identify all posts discussing RT. A random sample of posts and their top 3 comments was selected to generate qualitative thematic codes per author consensus, which were used to characterize all posts and their top 3 voted comments. Posts were analyzed for time to first reply, mention of any specific RT modality, whether a self-identified HP responded, and time to first highly voted comment by an HP. Results: Exactly 190 posts about RT by 178 users were shared from February 2011 to May 2018, and 468 replies by 295 users were also analyzed. Twenty-nine of these users (9.8%) were HPs; however, 48 of 181 top comments were contributed by HPs compared with 45 of 288 non–top comments by HPs (odds ratio, 1.95; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.23-3.08; P |
