Online Public Interest in Urological Cancers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: What Can “Dr. Google” Teach Us?

BACKGROUND: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has greatly affected health care priorities. OBJECTIVE: To explore and analyse trends in public online search for urological cancers. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: We performed a retrospective analysis using the Google Health Trends online tool. Data related to urological cancer terms (“prostate cancer”, “kidney cancer”, and “bladder cancer”) were extracted. We analysed trends for the whole world and for five countries: Italy, the UK, France, Sweden, and the USA. OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: A join-point regression model was used to define significant changes in trends over time. Week percentage changes (WPCs) were estimated to summarise linear trends. The Mann-Whitney test was used to compare the search volume during the COVID-19 pandemic period (from January 2020 to April 2021) and the equivalent period of 2018 and 2019. RESULTS AND LIMITATIONS: During COVID-19, worldwide online interest decreased significantly for all urological cancers, especially prostate cancer (WPC: –13.9%, p = 0.004; WPC: –5.4%, p < 0.001; and WPC: –4.3%, p < 0.001, for prostate, kidney, and bladder cancers, respectively). The most important decline was observed in the USA. The interest for all cancers was significantly less during the COVID-19 pandemic than in the same periods of 2018 and 2019. CONCLUSIONS: Online interest in urological cancers decreased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Future studies will tell us whether this will translate into worse oncological outcomes. PATIENT SUMMARY: Patients are increasingly searching the Internet to get information on cancer. We explored Google queries during the COVID-19 pandemic and found that online interest decreased significantly for all urological cancers, especially prostate cancer. We do not know yet whether this will translate into worse prognosis for patients.