Public Interest in Essure Tubal Occlusion [29A

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: In 2015 the FDA conducted a review on Essure after a significant number of patient complaints were reported. Multiple sources were used to gather information on adverse reports including social media through “social listening” [1]. We aim to quantify the number of web searches related to Essure and to correlate these findings with FDA complaints. METHODS: We used Bing Adwords, a web search tool to quantify the monthly number of searches for 2015 until July 2016. Search terms included: Essure, Essure procedure, tubal occlusion, tubal ligation. We also quantified the number of FDA complaints during the same time. RESULTS: The average number of monthly searches on Essure or Essure procedure was 5,849 in 2015 and 4,824 in 2016 (18% decrease). In September 2015 and March of 2016 the number of searches increased to 7,760 and 7,260 searches, respectively. Similarly, the number of FDA reports decreased from an average of 500 per month in 2015 to 380 per month in 2016 (24% decrease) [2]. Tubal occlusion and tubal ligation searches remained in the same range for 2015-2016. CONCLUSION: There was a similar decreasing trend for both the number of Essure searches and the number of FDA reports in 2016, suggesting that public interest in Essure began to decline after 2015. Web searches spiked during the FDA review and update in September 2015 and March 2016. This trend was not observed for tubal occlusion searches, perhaps because the general population does not use this term. This method could be useful for population health interest research.