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

Kenichiro Sato; Yoshiki Niimi; Ryoko Ihara; Atsushi Iwata; Kiyotaka Nemoto; Tetsuaki Arai; Shinji Higashi; Ataru Igarashi; Kensaku Kasuga; Takeshi Iwatsubo

doi:10.1177/25424823241307639

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

J Alzheimers Dis Rep. 2025 Jan 15:9:25424823241307639. doi: 10.1177/25424823241307639. eCollection 2025 Jan-Dec.

Authors

Kenichiro Sato^{1

2}, Yoshiki Niimi^{2

3}, Ryoko Ihara⁴, Atsushi Iwata⁴, Kiyotaka Nemoto⁵, Tetsuaki Arai⁵, Shinji Higashi⁶, Ataru Igarashi⁷, Kensaku Kasuga⁸, Takeshi Iwatsubo^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neuropathology, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
² Unit for Early and Exploratory Clinical Development, The University of Tokyo Hospital, Tokyo, Japan.
³ Department of Healthcare Economics and Health Policy, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
⁴ Department of Neurology, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Tokyo, Japan.
⁵ Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan.
⁶ Department of Psychiatry, Ibaraki Medical Center, Tokyo Medical University, Ibaraki, Japan.
⁷ Department of Public Health, Yokohama City University School of Medicine, Kanagawa, Japan.
⁸ Department of Molecular Genetics, Brain Research Institute, Niigata University, Niigata, Japan.

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.