Global insights: fluorescence guided surgery

Fluorescence guided surgery (FGS) has been progressively and globally adapted by multiple surgical disciplines over the last decade. Determining its reach and rate of expansion as a navigational surgical technique is challenging from traditional surveys. Google-trends (GT) was introduced as an ongoing-developing web-kit providing data on search trends to analyze the general population interest on specific topics. The purpose of this study is to implement GT data as an indicator for the world's interest in FGS.

GT was used to access data for specific medical subject headings (MeSH) terms associated with FGS, from 2019 to 2024. Collected data included interest over time, interest by country/continent, and related queries. Data were represented as search interest relative to the highest point on global charts for a given region and time. A value of 100% was set as peak popularity for searched term (s). Multiple correlation analyzes were performed between MeSH terms and surgical subspecialties.

The number of worldwide searches related to the MeSH terms indocyanine green (ICG) and fluorescence imaging (FI) have consistently increased over time, from 47 and 64% in 2019, to 88 and 69% by the end of 2024, respectively. America withholds the continent with the highest interest for ICG and FI, followed by Europe and Asia with 50 and 45%, respectively. Correlation analyzes with surgical subspecialties showed a significant positive relationship between the interest over time for ICG and fluorescent imaging when paired with endocrine surgery (p < 0.0001; p < 0.0001), urologic surgery (p = 0.003; p = 0.002), and gynecologic surgery (p < 0.0001; p = 0.005).

The data conveyed by GT complements the outlook of FGS across the world. Implementing these trends alongside healthcare advocacy and patient therapeutic education, FGS can further expand its applications and potentials to practice safe surgery.