ArticleHand (New York, N.Y.)2026
Comparing Online Patient Searches About Carpal Tunnel Release Approaches: A Study on Modern Search Analytics.
Article in Hand (New York, N.Y.), 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundUsing Google's "People Also Ask" feature, this study aims to characterize and compare frequently asked patient questions related to open (OCTR), endoscopic (ECTR), and ultrasound-guided (CTR-US) carpal tunnel release.
methodsSearch terms related to each surgical approach were entered into a new, incognito Google Chrome browser. For each term, the top 200 questions and corresponding websites were extracted. Questions were grouped using Rothwell's classification system, while websites were scored using the JAMA Benchmark Criteria. Fisher's exact tests were used to compare classifications, while
resultsOf the 1200 question-website combinations initially extracted, a total of 477 combinations were included for analysis. There were 197 OCTR, 225 ECTR, 30 CTR-US, and 25 comparative combinations. The most common question subclassification was risk/complications for OCTR (19.8%), evaluation of surgery for ECTR (15.7%), and technical details for CTR-US (40%). More than 25% of answers to OCTR and ECTR questions came from social media or commercial sources, while no answers did for CTR-US. There were no significant differences across approaches in total JAMA scores. Despite only being associated with medical practice websites, comparative questions exhibited significantly lower JAMA scores (
conclusionsWhile patient questions and their associated websites on OCTR and ECTR exhibited similar classifications and quality respectively, surgeons should still emphasize the relative risks associated with ECTR. Furthermore, there is a need for high-quality online information on CTR-US and on comparisons between approaches.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.