Abstract
With an aging population, the incidence of osteoarthritis (OA) continues to grow.
After exhausting conservative therapy for many forms of OA, patients regularly opt
for surgical intervention in the form of total joint replacement surgery. One form,
total ankle replacement, has continued to gain favorability in the medical community.
Improved implant design and surgical technique have enabled success rates of total
ankle replacements to approach those of the hip and knee. As a new and improving therapy
to address end-stage ankle OA, knowledge of patient-interest has yet to be determined.
We used search inquiry data for the keywords “ankle arthritis” “ankle replacement”
and “ankle fusion” available from Google Trends™ to identify trends in patient and
geographic interest from 2009 to 2019. Search inquiries significantly increased for
all keywords over time (p < .001). Trend analysis over this 10-year period revealed a strong correlation for
ankle arthritis (0.88) and ankle replacement (0.76). Moreover, the correlation between
“ankle arthritis” and “ankle replacement” was strong (0.83) during this period. The
geographic distribution of these search terms showed the greatest increase in interest
for the keywords “ankle arthritis” “ankle replacement” and “ankle fusion” in Arizona,
New York, and Virginia respectively. Results of this study illustrate a similar increasing
patient interest in ankle arthritis and ankle replacements. This data can be used
effectively identify, educate, and treat populations interested in ankle replacements.
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to utilize Google Trends™ to
analyze patient interest in foot and ankle surgery.
Level of Clinical Evidence
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: November 25, 2022
Publication stage
In Press Corrected ProofFootnotes
Financial Disclosure: None reported.
Conflict of Interest: Dr Hyer is a consultant for Wright Medical Technology, Integra, Ossio, Artelon, and In2Bones. He maintains IP rights with Wright Medical Technology, Zimmer Biomet, Integra, and Stryker.
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