#ASTRO19 - Radiation Oncology Hashtag Project - September 16, 2019

PURPOSE RESULTS
Thank you to the growing online radiation oncology community including nurses,
therapists, physicists, biologists, and patients for participating in our surveys,
providing valuable insights, and continuing to help patients, providers, and our
healthcare systems. Also thanks to Symplur for hosting the structured hashtags.
SUMMARY
METHODS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Developing Radiation Oncology Hashtags to
Improve Our Online Communication
I. Pereira1, S. Turner2, S. Siva3, A. A. Albert4, D. A. Loblaw5, R. A. Simcock6, N. G. Zaorsky7, and M. S. Katz8; 1Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada, 2Crown Princess Mary Cancer Centre,
Westmead, Australia, 3University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, 4Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, MS, 5Department of Radiation
Oncology, Sunnybrook Odette Cancer Centre, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, 6Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, Brighton, United Kingdom, 7Department of
Radiation Oncology, Penn State Cancer Institute, Hershey, PA, 8Lowell General Hospital, Lowell, MA
Table 1. The Radiation Oncology Structured Hashtags. The result of 23 independent reviewers across North America and Europe. Radiation drug combinations, medical
physics, and women in radiation oncology hashtags lacked consensus. The surveyed #RadOnc community preferred #RTDrugCombo (20/33), #MedPhys (16/28), and
#RadOncWomen (38/78). This list was uploaded to Symplur to allow analytics.
Can a structured set of specialty-specific hashtags be
developed to enhance our online communication?
How do we maximize the benefit and minimize the harm of
social media’s influence on health?
Since 2007, hashtags have provided an effective way to categorize
messages, search for content, and find relevant results (Fig. 2). They were
once a tool only for the digital elite (nerds).
Figure 1. *We evaluated published
structured hashtags for oncology,
pathology, radiology, urology,
cardiology, & hematology
**Experts were from professional
societies and academic journals across
North America, Europe, & Australia
+Crowdsourcing was done through
anonymous surveys delivered to the
#RadOnc community using Twitter or
SurveyMonkey
++Where possible we cross-referenced
duplicate hashtags with active sources
(e.g. from the Cancer Tag Ontology)
Figure 2. Anatomy of a hashtag.
Appending this metadata to a Twitter
post allows chronologic retrieval by
using it as a search term.
Figure 3. Current state of hashtags.
Total number of tweets and tweets/day
from May 2014 to August 2019.
Figure 4. #RadOnc network analysis. Interactions between Participants using
the #RadOnc hashtag on Twitter from January to August 2019. Larger size
nodes and thicker lines indicate more interaction and stronger connections.
We now welcome those interested to learn and share around these key
topics to use the relevant hashtag, increase the breadth of participation, and
help each topic grow.
Some hashtags already see frequent use (Fig. 3) and may be a good
introduction for those new to Twitter. Radiation oncologists, institutions, and
journals may also use a specific hashtag to create communities of interest
and advocate for specific topics in cancer care similar to #RadOnc (Fig. 4).
We anticipate this structured set of hashtags can be evaluated and tested in
use with participants to better enhance professionalism, educate the public
about radiation oncology, and curate more accurate health information
online.
We created the first structured set of radiation oncology
hashtags for organized social media use.
Staying Power: Low barriers to digital entry, reach across silos, and
acceptance by the medical community has driven increasing use of social
media by providers, patients, and industry.
Openness: Platforms such as Twitter help close gaps in diversity and
inclusion through medical education, patient support, research, and
networking.
Relevance: Near real-time insight on trends, wider peer review, more
exchange of ideas including uncommon diagnoses, a larger audience for
important topics such as clinical trials, and detailed analytics.
Fake news: Anti-HPV vaccine myths, false complementary medicine claims,
and propaganda against radiation and other conventional treatment limits
public health, leads to worse outcomes, and increases costs.
Privacy: Most social media platforms by design are easily accessible and
have led to professional and ethical breaches.
Productivity: Traditionally thought a time sink, increasingly populated with
more data, and not a typical workshop or lecture hall.
0.001
0.01
0.1
1
10
100
1000
1
10
100
1000
10000
100000
1000000
# Tweets Tweets/day
@IanJPereira
@sandraturner49
@_ShankarSiva
@AshleyAlbertMD
@DrAndrewLoblaw
@BreastDocUK
@NicholasZaorsky
@subatomicdoc
For the most recent radiation oncology structured hashtag list: www.symplur.com/healthcare-hashtags/ontology/radiation-oncology

Developing Radiation Oncology Hashtags
to Improve Our Online Communication
I. Pereira1, S. Turner2, S. Siva3, A. A. Albert4, D. A. Loblaw5, R. A. Simcock6, N. G. Zaorsky7, and M. S. Katz8; 1Queen's University, Kingston,
ON, Canada, 2Crown Princess Mary Cancer Centre, Westmead, Australia, 3University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, 4Department of
Radiation Oncology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, MS, 5Department of Radiation Oncology, Sunnybrook Odette
Cancer Centre, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, 6Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, Brighton, United
Kingdom, 7Department of Radiation Oncology, Penn State Cancer Institute, Hershey, PA, 8Lowell General Hospital, Lowell, MA
@IanJPereira
@sandraturner49
@_ShankarSiva
@AshleyAlbertMD
@DrAndrewLoblaw
@BreastDocUK
@NicholasZaorsky
@subatomicdoc

PURPOSE
Can a structured set of specialty-specific hashtags be
developed to enhance our online communication?
How do we maximize the benefit and minimize the harm of
social media’s influence on health?
Since 2007, hashtags have provided an effective way to categorize messages, search for content, and
find relevant results (Fig. 2). They were once a tool only for the digital elite (nerds).
Fake news: Anti-HPV vaccine myths, false
complementary medicine claims, and propaganda
against radiation and other conventional treatment
limits public health, leads to worse outcomes, and
increases costs.
Privacy: Most social media platforms by design are easily
accessible and have led to professional and ethical
breaches.
Productivity: Traditionally thought a time sink,
increasingly populated with more data, and not a typical
workshop or lecture hall.
Staying Power: Low barriers to digital entry, reach across
silos, and acceptance by the medical community has
driven increasing use of social media by providers,
patients, and industry.
Openness: Platforms such as Twitter help close gaps in
diversity and inclusion through medical education,
patient support, research, and networking.
Relevance: Near real-time insight on trends, wider peer
review, more exchange of ideas including uncommon
diagnoses, a larger audience for important topics such as
clinical trials, and detailed analytics.

Figure 2. Anatomy of a hashtag.
Appending this metadata to a Twitter post allows chronologic
retrieval by using it as a search term (#RadOnc).
PURPOSE

METHODS
Figure 1.
*We evaluated published structured hashtags for
oncology, pathology, radiology, urology, cardiology, &
hematology
**Experts were from professional societies and academic
journals across North America, Europe, & Australia
+Crowdsourcing was done through anonymous surveys
delivered to the #RadOnc community using Twitter or
SurveyMonkey
++Where possible we cross-referenced duplicate hashtags
with active sources (e.g. from the Cancer Tag Ontology)

RESULTS
Table 1. The Radiation Oncology Structured Hashtags.
A result of 23 independent reviewers across North America & Europe. Radiation drug combinations, medical
physics, & women in radiation oncology hashtags lacked consensus. The surveyed #RadOnc community
preferred #RTDrugCombo (20/33), #MedPhys (16/28), & #RadOncWomen (38/78). This list was uploaded to
Symplur to allow analytics.

RESULTS
Figure 3. The current state of hashtags.
Total number of tweets and tweets/day from May 2014 to August 2019.
0.001
0.01
0.1
1
10
100
1000
1
10
100
1000
10000
100000
1000000
# Tweets Tweets/day

RESULTS
Figure 4. #RadOnc network analysis. Interactions between Participants
using the #RadOnc hashtag on Twitter from January to August 2019. Larger size nodes
and thicker lines indicate more interaction and stronger connections.

SUMMARY
We intend for this evolving list to improve our
communication online.
We created the first structured set of radiation oncology
hashtags for organized social media use.
We now welcome everyone interested in learning and sharing radiation oncology knowledge to use the
relevant hashtag, increase the breadth of participation, and help each topic grow.
Some hashtags already see frequent use (Fig. 3) and may be a good introduction for those new to
Twitter. Radiation oncologists, institutions, and journals may also use a specific hashtag to create
communities of interest and advocate for specific topics in cancer care similar to #RadOnc (Fig. 4).
We anticipate this structured set of hashtags can be evaluated and tested with participants to better
enhance professionalism, educate the public about radiation oncology, and curate more accurate health
information online.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to the growing online radiation oncology community including nurses, therapists, physicists,
biologists, and patients for participating in our surveys, providing valuable insights, and continuing to help
patients, providers, and our healthcare systems.
Also, thanks to Symplur for hosting the structured hashtags. Find the most recent radiation oncology
structured hashtag list here: www.symplur.com/healthcare-hashtags/ontology/radiation-oncology
Finally, thank you to the ASTRO Organizing Committee for allowing us this invaluable opportunity to
communicate IRL (in real life) to improve our communication in the digital world.

CONTACT US
Please do not hesitate to reach out to us for comments, feedback, likes, retweets, or replies. We look
forward to the online engagement.
@IanJPereira
@sandraturner49
@_ShankarSiva
@AshleyAlbertMD
@DrAndrewLoblaw
@BreastDocUK
@NicholasZaorsky
@subatomicdoc

#ASTRO19 - Radiation Oncology Hashtag Project - September 16, 2019

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#ASTRO19 - Radiation Oncology Hashtag Project - September 16, 2019