Bladder cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed genitourinary malignancies. For many years, the primary treatment for metastatic urothelial cancer (mUC) was predicated on the use of platinum-based chemotherapy. More recently, immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) were approved by regulatory agencies such as the US FDA for use in both the first- and second-line settings. This review outlines the approved ICIs for mUC in the second-line setting and as an alternative to chemotherapy in the first-line setting, as well as the novel agents that have also been incorporated into the treatment of this malignancy. Single-agent ICIs are often used in second-line settings in mUC, and there are three drugs currently approved for those who progress after receiving platinum-based chemotherapy. In the first-line setting, the preferred treatment regimen remains cisplatin-based chemotherapy. However, single-agent ICI can be an alternative first-line treatment for those who are not candidates for cisplatin-based therapy. There are also clinical trials adding ICIs to chemotherapy as combination regimens. However, treatment for mUC has now expanded even beyond immunotherapy. Newer targeted agents such as erdafitinib, a fibroblast growth factor receptor inhibitor, and two antibody-drug conjugates, enfortumab vedotin and sacituzumab govitecan, have been recently approved. As new drug agents are discovered, it will be important to assess both the treatment outcomes as well as the effects on patients quality of life. Furthermore, integrating genetic and molecular information can help guide treatment decisions as next-generation sequencing is more commonly acquired during the evaluation of newly diagnosed patients with advanced and metastatic cancer.

Objective

To characterize the decision-making process and illness experience of women with pelvic organ prolapse (POP) using large-scale social media analysis.

Methods

Digital ethnographic analysis of online posts identified through data mining was performed. Grounded theory methodology was applied to 200 posts via traditional hand coding. To supplement our qualitative approach, we applied a Latent Dirichlet Allocation probabilistic topic modeling process to review the entire data set of identified posts to ensure thematic saturation.

Results

There were 3451 posts by 2088 unique users from 117 websites worldwide that were identified via social media data mining. We found that the anonymity of online forums allowed for information and support exchange among women with POP. Our analysis revealed that the exchange of online information aids in the decision-making process and, in some instances, appears to be the primary source of information. There was confusion about the anatomical and surgical complexities of prolapse. Our study also identified misconceptions, perceived risk factors, prevention methods, and management recommendations that were discussed online.

Conclusions

This large-scale online community-based analysis demonstrated the utility of social media to better understand women's experiences with POP. Thematic findings highlighted essential concerns and challenges involved in the surgical decision-making process and the understating of the anatomical complexity of sector defects, specifically to cystocele, rectocele, State specific defects.

Objective

To evaluate the level of evidence behind recommendations on social media for disease prevention in five lower urinary tract symptoms.

Materials and methods

We conducted a digital analysis of anonymous online posts on social media sites collected by a social media data mining service. One thousand posts about pelvic organ prolapse, stress urinary incontinence, overactive bladder, urinary tract infection, and interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome were randomly selected. We analyzed these posts for recommendations regarding the prevention and treatment of these diseases, which were then compared to recommendations in available clinical guidelines and assessed for level of evidence.

Results

A total of 158 of 1000 posts contained 239 prevention strategies. For pelvic organ prolapse, there were 41 strategies identified, 25 (61%) of which had no evidence. For urinary tract infection 14 of 58 (29%) had no evidence, including recommendations for dietary modifications and urinary alkalization. For overactive bladder 8 of 28 (29%) had level 4 or no evidence. For stress urinary incontinence, 12 of 34 (36%) of prevention strategies had no evidence, such as laser rejuvenation and bladder training. Interstitial cystitis had the highest number of prevention strategies, and most were low or nonevidence based (70/79, 89%).

Conclusion

Prevention and treatment strategies are common in online discussions of pelvic floor disorders, but at least one third of these recommendations have no evidential support. There is a role for further online education and social media engagement by health care specialists to promote evidence-based practices.

Immuno-oncology (IO) and targeted therapies, such as small molecule inhibitors, have changed the landscape of cancer treatment and prognosis; however, durable responses have been difficult to achieve due to tumor heterogeneity, development of drug resistance, and adverse effects that limit dosing and prolonged drug use. To improve upon the current medicinal armamentarium, there is an urgent need for new ways to understand, reverse, and treat carcinogenesis. Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-CRISPR-associated protein (Cas) 9 is a powerful and efficient tool for genome editing that has shown significant promise for developing new therapeutics. While CRISPR/Cas9 has been successfully used for pre-clinical cancer research, its use in the clinical setting is still in an early stage of development. The purpose of this review is to describe the CRISPR technology and to provide an overview of its current applications and future potential as cancer therapies.