title: Detecting internet search activity for mouth cancer in Ireland.
abstract: Mouth Cancer Awareness Day in Ireland was launched in September 2010 by survivors of the disease to promote public awareness of suspicious signs of oral cancer and to provide free dental examinations. To find out whether its introduction had increased public interest in the disease, we used Google Trends to find out how often users in Ireland had searched for "oral cancer" and "mouth cancer" across all Google domains between January 2005 and December 2013. The number of internet searches for these cancers has increased significantly (p <0.001) and has peaked each September since the awareness day was launched in 2010. More people searched for "mouth cancer" than for "oral cancer". These findings may have valuable clinical implications, as an increase in public awareness of mouth cancer could result in earlier presentation and better prognosis.
authors.affiliation: Graduate Entry Medical School, University of Limerick.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Murray
authors.affiliation: Graduate Entry Medical School, University of Limerick; Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, University Hospital Limerick, Ireland. Electronic address: colinorourke@rcsi.ie.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: O'Rourke
authors.affiliation: Graduate Entry Medical School, University of Limerick.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hogan
authors.affiliation: Graduate Entry Medical School, University of Limerick; Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, University Hospital Limerick, Ireland.
authors.forename: J E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Fenton
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D007494:Ireland; D009062:Mouth Neoplasms
keywords: Awareness; Google trends; Internet; Mouth cancer