Observational studyJMIR infodemiology2026
Online Information-Seeking Behavior Regarding Vitreous Floaters in the United States: Google Trends Analysis.
Observational study in JMIR infodemiology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Vitreous floaters are a prevalent phenomenon, with some patients experiencing persistent symptoms that substantially degrade their vision. Public interest and information-seeking behavior regarding vitreous surgery are challenging to quantify using claims alone. Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate temporal and geographic patterns of public interest in vitreous floaters and related interventions in the United States and to contextualize this interest relative to retina specialist availability. Methods: In this retrospective observational study, we queried Google Trends for search terms originating in the United States from 2008 to 2025. We extracted the relative search volume (RSV) using a composite of terms combined with the Google Trends "+" operator. State-level counts of vitreoretinal surgeons from the American Society of Retina Specialists (ASRS) database were used to calculate surgeon density per 100,000 population. We calculated a search-to-surgeon index (SSI) as the ratio of state-level RSV to retina surgeon density to serve as an exploratory metric of public interest relative to specialist availability. We evaluated associations using the Mann-Kendall trend test, Sen slope, and Spearman correlation. Results: From 2008 to 2025, nonsurgical RSV increased by 138%, demonstrating a significant temporal increasing trend ( Conclusions: This analysis demonstrates substantial geographic variability in public interest in vitreous floaters across the United States. Integrating Google Trends data with surgeon distribution provides an exploratory framework for evaluating relative interest in vitreoretinal care, though it does not directly measure clinical demand.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.