Blastic Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cell Neoplasm (BPDCN) on Social Media: #BPDCN—Increasing Exposure over Two Years Since Inception of a Disease-Specific Twitter Community

Abstract

Purpose of Review: Engagement on social media for professional, healthcare-related communication is rapidly rising around the world. We aimed to better understand the dynamics of a rare disease Twitter hashtag community. Recent Findings: Twitter has served as a platform for academic discussion, a method for knowledge dissemination directly from medical meetings, and a venue for patient caregiver and support groups. One example of a rare cancer that has seen an increase in available information via Twitter is blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm, or BPDCN. This field has recently experienced a new wave of interest from various healthcare stakeholders in light of key new scientific breakthroughs and novel clinical trials now starting to be available. Summary: In order to bring all relevant healthcare stakeholders together, the investigators of this article created a disease-specific Twitter community: #BPDCN = “blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm on social media” which has led to higher levels of engagement and discussion in the field. This article focuses on our analysis of advanced Twitter user-metrics in the second year of #BPDCN and discusses future directions for this rare cancer online disease community.