There is ongoing debate regarding x-ray mammography for breast cancer screening purposes.
Twitter has been utilized for disseminating information on this topic.
Researchers highlighted the potential role of Twitter for breast cancer prevention by analyzing data obtained during the breast cancer awareness month [10].
A recent study evaluated themes related to patients' experience in undergoing mammography,
as expressed on Twitter [11],
whilst another work investigated how users are sharing evidence and discussing current guidelines for breast cancer screening [12].
However,
little work has been done examining tweets in the context of radiogenic breast cancer risk,
and there is a dearth of literature about how social media users react to the radiation burden associated with mammographic procedures.
The current work,
therefore,
interrogated tweets which interrelate mammographic examinations to radiation exposure.
Figure 1 shows that healthcare professionals like radiologists and physicians shape a very small percentage (13% collectively) of the users who tweet about this specific subject.
When they do,
their tweets tend to be mostly informative and favourable but nonetheless due to their small number,
their impact in informing the public is minimal.
Non-favourable tweets come exclusively from physicians (not from radiologists) that are in favour of other imaging techniques,
such as Thermography.
Healthcare professionals provide links to peer reviewed medical journals and justified information about radiation exposure in mammography examinations.
Similarly,
physicists are informative and favourable,
with scientifically justified tweet content,
but with evidently fewer tweets (1%) than all the other user types.
Organizations (15%) tweet shortly after the publishing of relevant articles in scientific journals.
They immediately tweet links forwarding directly to these aricles.
Organizations also include links forwarding to informational sections of their official websites developed for educating people about medical procedures,
such as x-ray mammography.
Linked sources,
specifically those which forward to “peer reviewed medical journals”,
“not peer reviewed” and “informational websites and pamphlets” (Figure 2),
provide material of high informational value with mostly favourable and neutral tendencies.
Most “Remarks” where originating from ordinary persons (not professionals) tweeting their concern and encouraging or deterring people from undergoing the procedure.
Figure 3 highlights that Twitter users are not largely unfavourable towards mammography and its projected radiation risks,
which can be regarded as a positive outcome.
It is also encouraging that 76% of the reviewed tweets had informative content (Figure 4).
The above findings suggest that more efforts are needed to educate and disseminate accurate information to the general public regarding the risk-to-benefit ratio of x-ray mammography screening,
emphasizing the harms of non complying with the current guidelines for breast cancer screening.
Although further research may be needed to assess the reliability of the above data,
certain recommendations can be made based on the study's findings.
Healthcare professionals and organizations should employ Twitter in their communication with the public more systematically.
Twitter is a great tool to address target groups and,
in this case,
inform current or future participants in breast cancer screening schemes about a great source of stress for them,
which relates to the amount of radiation they are going to be exposed to during mammography.
The continuously expanding user base of Twitter makes it a prominent source for broadcasting information compared to traditional communication media such as magazines,
radio or television.
The fact that only 19% of the studied tweets included the term “digital” in their content may suggest that Twitter should also be used for informing people about the technological advances in x-ray mammography and their contribution to radiation burden reduction.
Helping non-academic audiences understand scientific findings can be challenging.
In this respect,
significant contemporary discussion in the field of science communication is how scientists are using (or might use) social media to effectively communicate scientific findings [7].
Many academics are still concerned regarding the use of social media to disseminate scientific results and,
thus,
Twitter usage has yet to be widely adopted.
However,
there is evidence that scientists using social media perceive numerous potential advantages [7],whilst focused studies have demonstrated that Twitter can actually prove to be an effective tool for communicating science [13].
In any case,
it seems that communicating the actual benefits and radiogenic risks of x-ray mammography via Twitter carries low risk from the academic perspective.
In this sense,
radiologists and medical physicists should try to communicate through Twitter the scientifically documented views on radiogenic cancer risks from x-ray mammography in a credible and comprehensible manner to the public.
As highlighted by a recent study [14],
only a small fraction of academic radiology departments actively use Twitter.
It is imperative,
therefore,
that experts take advantage of this communication tool and engage themselves through a broad array of content.
Future work should investigate inclusion of domains such as Twitter in medical curricula for educational purposes and how information provided though such social media channels can reach policymakers and propose actions in order Twitter to serve these goals.