Reporting of financial conflicts of interest in meta-analyses of drug trials published in high-impact medical journals: comparison of results from 2017 to 2018 and 2009

Ref ID 747
First Author C. Benea
Journal SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS
Year Of Publishing 2020
URL https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32268911
Keywords • Allegiance
• General medical
• Disclosure
• Non-Cochrane reviews
• Cochrane
Problem(s) • Conflict of interest statement or disclosures for review authors missing
• Cochrane reviews more rigorous/higher quality than non-Cochrane reviews
• Funding or sponsor of systematic review not reported
Article Type Empirical
Article Subtype Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review
First Author Country Canada
Aim To assess the extent to which pharmaceutical industry funding and author-industry financial conflicts of interest and employment from included drug trials are reported in systematic reviews with meta-analyses published in between Jan 2017 and Oct 2018 in high-impact journals and to compare current reporting with results from 2009.
Level of Investigation Descriptive
Summary of Findings Reporting of drug trial sponsorship and author financial conflicts of interest in meta-analyses published in high-impact journals increased since 2009 but was still suboptimal. Among 29 meta-analyses reviewed, 13 of 29 (44.8%) reported the funding source of included trials compared to 2 of 29 (6.9%) in 2009, a difference of 37.9% (95% confidence interval, 15.7 to 56.3%); this included 7 of 11 (63.6%) from general medicine journals, 3 of 15 (20.0%) from specialty medicine journals, and 3 of 3 (100%) Cochrane reviews. Only 2 of 29 meta-analyses (6.9%) reported trial author financial conflicts of interest, and none reported trial author-industry employment.
Number of systematic reviews included 29
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 176