To utilize online forums as a source of unprompted patient experiences in understanding the impacts of radiotherapy on patients with prostate cancer.
Three online forums: patient.info, Cancer Survivor Network (CSN), and CancerResearchUK were identified by a structured keyword search on Google and searched for relevant posts. Qualitative thematic analysis using grounded-theory principles was performed on publicly available online forum posts using Dedoose (Los Angeles, CA).
One hundred fifty-seven posts by 91 unique users were analyzed. The most frequently mentioned pelvic and abdominal adverse effects were "increased urine frequency" (n = 31) and "radiation-induced GI tract inflammation" (n = 28) respectively. The majority of posts showed that abdominal and pelvic adverse effects occurred after radiation treatment (n = 154) rather than during radiation treatment (n = 26). Most posts showed that patient's symptoms were ongoing (n = 68) as opposed to resolving with (n = 35) or without (n = 25) treatment.
Online forums were frequently utilized by post-radiation prostate cancer survivors to discuss their experiences and seek peer support. This study provides physicians a deeper understanding about morbidity of post-radiation prostate cancer patients through their own narrative and highlights principal issues resonating among this patient population.
For cancer survivors, these findings may facilitate more informed discussions with healthcare providers, improve awareness of potential treatment-related challenges, and underscore the value of peer support communities in survivorship care.
Journal of cancer survivorship : research and practice. 2026 Jul 22 [Epub ahead of print]
Umar Ghaffar, Architha Sudhakar, Nizar Hakam, Jason L Lui, Christine Shieh, Kevin D Li, Behzad Abbasi, Charles P Jones, Nathan M Shaw, Lindsay A Hampson, Benjamin N Breyer
Department of Urology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA., Division of urologic surgery, Department of Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA., Department of Urology, MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, Washington, DC, USA., Department of Urology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA. .