Opinion statement
As the world becomes more connected through online and offline social networking, there has been much discussion of how the rapid rise of social media could be used in ways that can be productive and instructive in various healthcare specialties, such as Cardiology and its subspecialty areas. In this review, the role of social media in the field of Cardio-Oncology is discussed. With an estimated 17 million cancer survivors in the USA in 2019 and 22 million estimated by 2030, more education and awareness are needed. Networking and collaboration are also needed to meet the needs of our patients and healthcare professionals in this emerging field bridging two disciplines. Cardiovascular disease is second only to recurrence of the primary cancer or diagnosis with a secondary malignancy, as a leading cause of death in cancer survivors. A majority of these survivors are anticipated to be on social media seeking information, support, and ideas for optimizing health. Healthcare professionals in Cardio-Oncology are also online for networking, education, scholarship, career development, and advocacy in this field. Here, we describe the utilization and potential impact of social media in Cardio-Oncology, with inclusion of various hashtags frequently used in the Cardio-Oncology Twitter community.
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.Notes
For ease of access, we have shortened the weblinks to TinyUrl.Com/SoMeOverview and TinyUrl.Com/SoMeDropbox.
References and Recommended Reading
Parwani P, Choi AD, Lopez-Mattei J, Raza S, Chen T, Narang A, et al. Understanding social media: opportunities for cardiovascular medicine. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2019;73(9):1089–93.
Mandrola J. Futyma P. Trends Cardiovasc Med: The role of social media in cardiology; 2019.
Schumacher KR, Lee JM, Pasquali SK. Social media in paediatric heart disease: professional use and opportunities to improve cardiac care. Cardiol Young. 2015;25(8):1584–9.
Rosselló X, Stanbury M, Beeri R, Kirchhof P, Casadei B, Kotecha D. Digital learning and the future cardiologist. Eur Heart J. 2019;40(6):499–501.
Pemmaraju N. Editorial overview: emerging importance of social media for real-time communication in the modern medical era. Semin Hematol. 2017;54(4):175–6.
Perales MA, Drake EK, Pemmaraju N, Wood WA. Social media and the adolescent and young adult (AYA) patient with Cancer. Curr Hematol Malig Rep. 2016;11(6):449–55.
Katz MS, Utengen A, Anderson PF, Thompson MA, Attai DJ, Johnston C, et al. Disease-specific Hashtags for online communication about Cancer care. JAMA Oncol. 2016;2(3):392–4.
Pemmaraju N, Thompson MA, Mesa RA, Desai T. Analysis of the use and impact of twitter during American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meetings from 2011 to 2016: focus on advanced metrics and user trends. J Oncol Pract. 2017;13(7):e623–e31.
Sedrak MS, Dizon DS, Anderson PF, Fisch MJ, Graham DL, Katz MS, et al. The emerging role of professional social media use in oncology. Future Oncol. 2017;13(15):1281–5.
Dizon DS, Graham D, Thompson MA, Johnson LJ, Johnston C, Fisch MJ, et al. Practical guidance: the use of social media in oncology practice. J Oncol Pract. 2012;8(5):e114–24.
Walsh MN. Social media and cardiology. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2018;71(9):1044–7.
Siegel RL, Miller KD, Jemal A. Cancer statistics, 2019. CA Cancer J Clin. 2019;69(1):7–34.
Pemmaraju N, Gupta V, Mesa R, Thompson MA. Social media and Myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN)--focus on twitter and the development of a disease-specific community: #MPNSM. Curr Hematol Malig Rep. 2015;10(4):413–20.
Pemmaraju N, Utengen A, Gupta V, Thompson MA, Lane AA. Blastic Plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN) on social media: #BPDCN-increasing exposure over two years since inception of a disease-specific twitter community. Curr Hematol Malig Rep. 2018;13(6):581–7.
Widmer RJ, Larsen CM. Call for FITs/ECs to become engaged with social media. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2016;68(4):422–5.
Chang HM, Moudgil R, Scarabelli T, Okwuosa TM, Yeh ETH. Cardiovascular complications of Cancer therapy: best practices in diagnosis, prevention, and management: part 1. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2017;70(20):2536–51.
Chang HM, Okwuosa TM, Scarabelli T, Moudgil R, Yeh ETH. Cardiovascular complications of Cancer therapy: best practices in diagnosis, prevention, and management: part 2. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2017;70(20):2552–65.
Hu JR, Florido R, Lipson EJ, Naidoo J, Ardehali R, Tocchetti CG, et al. Cardiovascular toxicities associated with immune checkpoint inhibitors. Cardiovasc Res. 2019;115(5):854–68.
Zarifa A, Salih M, Lopez-Mattei J, Lee H, Iliescu C, Hassan S, et al. Cardiotoxicity of FDA-approved immune checkpoint inhibitors: a rare but serious adverse event. Journal of Immunotherapy and Precision Oncology. 2018;1(2):68–77.
Touyz RM, Herrmann J. Cardiotoxicity with vascular endothelial growth factor inhibitor therapy. NPJ Precis Oncol. 2018;2:13.
Brown SA, Nhola L, Herrmann J. Cardiovascular toxicities of small molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitors: an opportunity for systems-based approaches. Clin Pharmacol Ther. 2017;101(1):65–80.
Cifu AS, Vandross AL, Prasad V. Case reports in the age of twitter. Am J Med. 2019.
Yeh RW. Academic cardiology and social media: navigating the wisdom and madness of the crowd. Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes. 2018;11(4):e004736.
Hudson S, Mackenzie G. Not your daughter's Facebook': twitter use at the European Society of Cardiology Conference 2018. Heart. 2019;105(2):169–70.
Tanoue MT, Chatterjee D, Nguyen HL, Sekimura T, West BH, Elashoff D, et al. Tweeting the meeting. Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes. 2018;11(11):e005018.
Pemmaraju N, Mesa RA, Majhail NS, Thompson MA. The use and impact of twitter at medical conferences: best practices and twitter etiquette. Semin Hematol. 2017;54(4):184–8.
Søreide K, Mackenzie G, Polom K, Lorenzon L, Mohan H, Mayol J. Tweeting the meeting: quantitative and qualitative twitter activity during the 38th ESSO conference. Eur J Surg Oncol. 2019;45(2):284–9.
Chaudhry A, Glodé LM, Gillman M, Miller RS. Trends in twitter use by physicians at the american society of clinical oncology annual meeting, 2010 and 2011. J Oncol Pract. 2012;8(3):173–8.
Gorodeski E. Make your mark at medical meetings with social media 2018 [Available from: https://www.medpagetoday.com/practicemanagement/informationtechnology/72320.
Redfern J, Ingles J, Neubeck L, Johnston S, Semsarian C. Tweeting our way to cardiovascular health. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2013;61(15):1657–8.
Lopez M, Chan TM, Thoma B, Arora VM, Trueger NS. The social media editor at medical journals: responsibilities, goals, barriers, and facilitators. Acad Med : Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges. 2019;94(5):701–7.
JACC: CardioOncology – Launching in September 2019 [Website]. 2019 [updated 2019. Available from: http://www.onlinejacc.org/JACC-CardioOncology.
@JACCJournals. Twitter2019 [tweet]. Available from: https://twitter.com/JACCJournals/status/1156580649932926980?s=20.
Barac A, Murtagh G, Carver JR, Chen MH, Freeman AM, Herrmann J, et al. Cardiovascular health of patients with Cancer and Cancer survivors. A Roadmap to the Next Level. 2015;65(25):2739–46.
Parwani P, Choi AD, Lopez-Mattei J, Raza S, Chen T, Narang A, et al. Understanding social media. Opportunities for Cardiovascular Medicine. 2019;73(9):1089–93.
Househ M, Borycki E, Kushniruk A. Empowering patients through social media: the benefits and challenges. Health Informatics J. 2014;20(1):50–8.
Campbell L, Evans Y, Pumper M, Moreno MA. Social media use by physicians: a qualitative study of the new frontier of medicine. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2016;16:91.
Hawkins CM, DeLa OA, Hung C. Social media and the patient experience. J Am Coll Radiol. 2016;13(12 Pt B):1615–21.
Kuehn BM. Social media becomes a growing force in cardiology. Circulation. 2019;140(9):790–2.
Attai DJ, Cowher MS, Al-Hamadani M, Schoger JM, Staley AC, Landercasper J. Twitter social media is an effective tool for breast Cancer patient education and support: patient-reported outcomes by survey. J Med Internet Res. 2015;17(7):e188.
Thompson MA, Younes A, Miller RS. Using social media in oncology for education and patient engagement. Oncology (Williston Park). 2012;26(9):782, 4–5, 91.
Chou WY, Hunt YM, Beckjord EB, Moser RP, Hesse BW. Social media use in the United States: implications for health communication. J Med Internet Res. 2009;11(4):e48.
Widmer RJ, Shepard M, Aase LA, Wald JT, Pruthi S, Timimi FK. The impact of social media on negative online physician reviews: an observational study in a large, academic. Multispecialty Practice J Gen Intern Med. 2019;34(1):98–101.
Bleyer A, Barr R. Cancer in young adults 20 to 39 years of age: overview. Semin Oncol. 2009;36(3):194–206.
Wood WA, Lee SJ. Malignant hematologic diseases in adolescents and young adults. Blood. 2011;117(22):5803–15.
Parsons HM, Schmidt S, Harlan LC, Kent EE, Lynch CF, Smith AW, et al. Young and uninsured: insurance patterns of recently diagnosed adolescent and young adult cancer survivors in the AYA HOPE study. Cancer. 2014;120(15):2352–60.
Woodruff TK, Smith K, Gradishar W. Oncologists' role in patient fertility care: a call to action. JAMA Oncol. 2016;2(2):171–2.
Farnan JM, Snyder Sulmasy L, Worster BK, Chaudhry HJ, Rhyne JA, Arora VM, et al. Online medical professionalism: patient and public relationships: policy statement from the American College of Physicians and the Federation of State Medical Boards. Ann Intern Med. 2013;158(8):620–7.
Farnan JM, Sulmasy LS, Chaudhry H. Online medical professionalism. Ann Intern Med. 2013;159(2):158–9.
Cabrera D, Vartabedian BS, Spinner RJ, Jordan BL, Aase LA, Timimi FK. More than likes and tweets: creating social media portfolios for academic promotion and tenure. J Grad Med Educ. 2017;9(4):421–5.
Cabrera D, Roy D, Chisolm MS. Social media scholarship and alternative metrics for academic promotion and tenure. J Am Coll Radiol. 2018;15(1 Pt B):135–41.
Sherbino J, Arora VM, Van Melle E, Rogers R, Frank JR, Holmboe ES. Criteria for social media-based scholarship in health professions education. Postgrad Med J. 2015;91(1080):551–5.
Quinn A, Chan TM, Sampson C, Grossman C, Butts C, Casey J, et al. Curated collections for educators: five key papers on evaluating digital scholarship. Cureus. 2018;10(1):e2021.
Carpenter CR, Cone DC, Sarli CC. Using publication metrics to highlight academic productivity and research impact. Acad Emerg Med. 2014;21(10):1160–72.
Widmer RJ, Mandrekar J, Ward A, Aase LA, Lanier WL, Timimi FK, et al. Effect of promotion via social media on access of articles in an academic medical journal: a randomized controlled trial. Acad Med. 2019.
Finch T, O'Hanlon N, Dudley SP. Tweeting birds: online mentions predict future citations in ornithology. R Soc Open Sci. 2017;4(11):171371.
Buckarma EH, Thiels CA, Gas BL, Cabrera D, Bingener-Casey J, Farley DR. Influence of social media on the dissemination of a traditional surgical research article. J Surg Educ. 2017;74(1):79–83.
Eysenbach G. Can tweets predict citations? Metrics of social impact based on twitter and correlation with traditional metrics of scientific impact. J Med Internet Res. 2011;13(4):e123.
Smith ZL, Chiang AL, Bowman D, Wallace MB. Longitudinal relationship between social media activity and article citations in the journal Gastrointestinal Endoscopy. Gastrointest Endosc. 2019;90(1):77–83.
Chan TM, Stukus D, Leppink J, Duque L, Bigham BL, Mehta N, et al. Social media and the 21st-century scholar: how you can harness social media to amplify your career. J Am Coll Radiol. 2018;15(1 Pt B):142–80.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
Sherry-Ann Brown declares that she has no conflict of interest. Ryan P. Daly serves as a social media consultant for JACC: CardioOncology Narjust Duma has received compensation from Inivata for service as a consultant. Eric H. Yang declares that he has no conflict of interest. Naveen Pemmaraju has received research funding from AbbVie, Stemline Therapeutics, Novartis, Samus Therapeutics, Cellectis, Plexxikon, Daiichi Sankyo, Affymetrix; is supported by grants from the Sager Strong Foundation and Dan’s House of Hope; has received compensation from AbbVie, Celgene, Stemline Therapeutics, Incyte, Novartis, Mustang Bio, Roche Diagnostics, and LFB for service as a consultant; and has served as a board member/volunteer for Dan’s House of Hope and the HemOnc Times/Oncology Times. Purvi Parwani has received compensation for service as a consultant on the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Andrew D. Choi declares that he has no conflict of interest. Juan Lopez-Mattei has received compensation from Arterys for service as a consultant.
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This article is part of the Topical Collection on Cardio-oncology
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Brown, SA., Daly, R.P., Duma, N. et al. Leveraging Social Media for Cardio-Oncology. Curr. Treat. Options in Oncol. 21, 83 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11864-020-00775-3
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11864-020-00775-3