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. 2025 Jan 15:9:25424823241307639.
doi: 10.1177/25424823241307639. eCollection 2025 Jan-Dec.

Sentiment analysis of social media responses to the approval of lecanemab for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease in Japan

Kenichiro Sato  1   2 , Yoshiki Niimi  2   3 , Ryoko Ihara  4 , Atsushi Iwata  4 , Kiyotaka Nemoto  5 , Tetsuaki Arai  5 , Shinji Higashi  6 , Ataru Igarashi  7 , Kensaku Kasuga  8 , Takeshi Iwatsubo  1   2
Affiliations

Sentiment analysis of social media responses to the approval of lecanemab for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease in Japan

Kenichiro Sato et al. J Alzheimers Dis Rep. .

Abstract

Lecanemab, an anti-amyloid therapy for early Alzheimer's disease, received approval by the FDA and Japan in 2023. Public response on social media was scrutinized, aiming to obtain insights into communication and treatment development. For 478 posts from X and Facebook, their sentiments on efficacy, safety, societal significance, and overall lecanemab impression were assessed by GPT-4 and the authors. Results indicated impressions were 43.7% negative, 26.6% neutral, and 29.7% positive. Social significance concerns dominated negative views. Specific attitude patterns were observed in the overall impression to lecanemab's approval. These insights highlight the need for targeted communication and research on anti-amyloid therapies.

Keywords: Alzheimer's disease; large language model; lecanemab; sentiment analysis; social media.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Evaluation of aspects #1–4 by GPT-4.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Evaluation aspects #1–3 by GPT-4, depending on the result for aspect #4.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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