INTRODUCTION: The DDW is an international gathering of physicians around the globe in the fields of GI. Collectively sponsored by few of the largest GI societies. Nowadays, social media is widely used to deliver information and business marketing. Twitter is a social network site that rapidly gained worldwide popularity. With over 300 million users, and over 500 million Tweets sent daily, there is a great opportunity to spread ideas to a global audience. In this study, we are aiming to analyze the use of Twitter during DDW. METHODS: The Symplur Signals, a specialized healthcare social media analytics platform was used to analyse the hashtag #DDW19, the official hashtag of the DDW 2019 meeting. The analysis was conducted on tweets during the meeting days between May 18-21, 2019. The number of tweets, participants, impressions, average tweets per hour and average tweets per participant was determined. Advanced search on Twitter was also conducted using the hashtag #DDW19 with time frame between May 18-21. The resulted tweets were sorted by category “top tweets”. The top 50 tweets were categorized by content to scientific, social, administrative, industry promotion, or irrelevant. RESULTS: DDW 2019 had over 14,000 attendees from around the world. The number of people who participated in the hashtag #DDW was 3,924 (28% of the attendees) sending 15,350 tweets during the meeting days, with an average of 4 tweets per participant and 160 tweets/hour, leaving 71.594 million impression. The hashtag activity reached a peak of 4,815 tweets on the 2nd day of the meeting, May 19th. 60% of the top tweets were from physicians, 10% by medical journalist, and 30% by medical society/organizations. 42% of the top 50 tweets had social content such as group photos or appreciation of other presenters. Whereas 40% were scientific content. However administrative tweets were 10%. Only 8% of content was industrial promotions. There were no irrelevant tweets. CONCLUSION: Social Media has become the most effective medium to reach an enormous audience. With over 71 Million impressions produced during the recent DDW. Twitter has successfully promoted the event worldwide and disseminated medical information in a quick and cost-effective method. It has communicated to millions of individuals, including non-medical professionals, in a way that is difficult for traditional media sources to achieve. In order to create a more informative and influential post, it is encouraged that users tweet more on scientific and medical contents.
INTRODUCTION: Achalasia is a rare motor disorder of the esophagus resulting from inflammation and degeneration of neurons and the interstitial cells of Cajal in the esophageal wall. Patients typically present with slow progressive dysphagia for solids and liquids, regurgitation, chest pain, cough, aspiration, and pneumonia. If patients are undiagnosed for an extended period of time, complications can arise. We report a case of how a complication can arise from achalasia, particularly in the form of lung abscess. The purpose of this report is to bring awareness of the increasing incidence of respiratory complications in patients with achalasia warranting further study. CASE DESCRIPTION/METHODS: A 44-year-old male came to the hospital with chest pain for one week. Shortly after, he began to experience severe pleuritic chest pain. The pain worsened with deep inspiration and coughing, preventing him from eating. A CT scan in the emergency room demonstrated infectious/inflammatory changes of the right upper lobe, concerning for abscess. His CT chest also showed a dilated esophagus, suggestive of achalasia. Further questioning revealed a several year long history of regurgitation symptoms. It was determined that the abscess was likely a complication of his suspected achalasia. IR guided drainage of the abscess was performed, and cultures were obtained, which grew multiple organisms found in oral flora. He subsequently underwent a VATS procedure for washout, decortication, chest tube placement, and bronchoscopy. An EGD to rule out pseudoachalasia caused by any mass lesions was performed showing a dilated esophagus. His EGD with manometry showed dilation of entire esophagus, notable for achalasia. A POEM procedure was performed with intra-operative real-time assessment using ENDOflip showed adequate myotomy. DISCUSSION: This case represents a rare complication of achalasia - lung abscess. Respiratory complications are common in patients with achalasia. Patients with achalasia experience respiratory symptoms with much greater frequency than previously thought, as shown in one study of 110 patients with achalasia where fifty-one patients (40%) reported the occurrence of at least one respiratory symptom daily, including cough in 41 patients (37%). Imaging obtained earlier in the hospital course may be beneficial to identify any respiratory processes that may be a result of the underlying achalasia. This case highlights the potentially severe complications of achalasia in patients with atypical clinical findings.
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