Do Author Conflicts of Interest and Industry Sponsorship Influence Outcomes of Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Regarding Glaucoma Interventions? A Cross-sectional Analysis

Ref ID 797
First Author A. Wise
Journal JOURNAL OF GLAUCOMA
Year Of Publishing 2021
URL https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/wk/jglau/2021/00000030/00000004/art00019
Keywords Author
Allegiance
Sponsorship bias
Disclosure
Ophthalmology
Non-Cochrane reviews
Problem(s) Conflict of interest statement or disclosures for review authors missing
Financial conflicts of interest of review authors
Number of systematic reviews included 26
Summary of Findings From 26 included systematic reviews of glaucoma indexed in MEDLINE and Embase between September 1, 2016 and June 2, 2020. 9 (35%) were conducted by at least 1 author with an undisclosed conflict of interest. Of those 9, 3 (33%) reported results favouring the treatment group, and 5 (56%) reported conclusions favouring the treatment group. Of the 17 systematic reviews with no conflicted authors, 1 (6%) reported results favouring the treatment group, and 2 (12%) reported conclusions favouring the treatment group. The Fisher exact tests demonstrated that these differences held a statistically significant association between author conflicts and the favourability of the reviews’ conclusions toward the treatment group (P=0.04).
Did the article find that the problem(s) led to qualitative changes in interpretation of the results? Yes
Are the methods of the article described in enough detail to replicate the study? No