DOI: 10.32322/jhsm.2002047 ISSN: 2636-8579

Ten-year changes in worldwide online search interest in English-language terms related to conservative, orthobiologic, and surgical treatments for knee osteoarthritis

Ahmet Acar, Osman Yağız Atlı
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Aims: This study aimed to evaluate ten-year changes in worldwide Google search interest in 27 selected English-language terms related to conservative, orthobiologic/regenerative, and surgical treatments for knee osteoarthritis and degenerative knee disorders.Methods: Monthly Google Trends relative search volume (RSV) data were obtained worldwide for 27 English-language treatment-related search terms between July 2016 and June 2026. The terms were classified as conservative/minimally invasive, orthobiologic/regenerative, or surgical treatments. Monthly RSV data were aggregated into 10 consecutive July-June annual means per term. Temporal trends were assessed using these 10 time points with the Mann-Kendall test and Sen’s slope estimator, with false discovery rate (FDR) correction for multiple comparisons. Monthly series were additionally evaluated using the Hamed-Rao modified Mann-Kendall test as a sensitivity analysis accounting for serial autocorrelation. Annual heatmaps and 12-month moving averages supported visual evaluation.Results: After FDR correction, significant increasing trends were identified in 11 of the 27 terms, whereas no significant decrease was detected. Significant increasing trends were observed for several terms, including steroid knee injection, robotic knee replacement, cartilage repair surgery, genicular nerve ablation, and platelet-rich plasma (PRP) knee. Significant increases occurred across all three treatment categories. Among the sparse/low-volume series, exosome knee and stromal vascular fraction knee remained below the Google Trends reporting threshold for 90.0% and 92.5% of the study months, respectively, but showed marked increases in visibility during the final year.Conclusion: Worldwide Google search interest increased concurrently across multiple selected English-language terms related to conservative, orthobiologic/regenerative, and surgical treatments. These parallel increases suggest expanding information needs across the treatment spectrum rather than a simple shift from conventional to novel treatments. Google Trends may help identify emerging patient interests; however, independently normalized RSV values should not be used to compare the absolute popularity of different treatments.

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