The U.S. Online News Coverage of Mammography Based on a Google News Search

Rationale And Objectives: To characterize online news coverage relating to mammography, including articles' stance toward screening mammography.

Materials And Methods: Google News was used to search U.S. news sites over a 9-year period (2006-2015) based on the search terms "mammography" and "mammogram." The top 100 search results were recorded. Identified articles were manually reviewed.

Results: The top 100 news articles were from the following sources: local news outlet (50%), national news outlet (24%), nonimaging medical source (13%), entertainment or culture news outlet (6%), business news outlet (4%), peer-reviewed journal (1%), and radiology news outlet (1%). Most common major themes were the screening mammography controversy (29%), description of a new breast imaging technology (23%), dense breasts (11%), and promotion of a public screening initiative (11%). For the most recent year, article stance toward screening mammography was 59%, favorable; 16%, unfavorable; and 25%, neutral. After 2010, there was an abrupt shift in articles' stances from neutral to both favorable and unfavorable.

Conclusions: A wide range of online news sources addressed a range of issues related to mammography. National, rather than local, news sites were more likely to focus on the screening controversy and more likely to take an unfavorable view. The controversial United States Preventive Services Task Force guidelines may have influenced articles to take a stance on screening mammography. As such online news may impact public perception of the topic and thus potentially impact guideline adherence, radiologists are encouraged to maintain awareness of this online coverage and to support the online dissemination of reliable and accurate information.