''Evidence-based Tweeting'' in Vascular Surgery.

The use of social media for academic or research purposes is still in infancy. However, the potential of dissemination of medical knowledge through these electronic platforms is dynamically increasing. We performed a search on Twitter® collecting tweets containing the keywords 'peripheral arterial disease' (PAD) and 'abdominal aortic aneurysm' (AAA) separately and including three types of emitters. Our aim was to assess the dissemination of these two major vascular entities across the social networking and their effect on the medical and general population. The results show that people talk about their experiences of hospitals and care quality on Twitter® more than health-care providers or commercial industries in critical diseases that arise more concern. Twitter® could become a successful channel through which physicians, patients and health-care providers interact, engage and disseminate medical knowledge.