30 Aug Oncologist-Authors Often Do Not Fully Disclose Financial Relationships with Pharmaceutical Companies
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences ‐ Analytical and Institutional Research
Tulsa, OK
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: New FDA-approved oncology drugs are essential to oncology practice. These drugs may immediately change clinical care by offering better treatments for common, lethal forms of cancer.
But, new FDA-approved oncology drugs are expensive and have been shown to have variable efficacy. Given the importance of new FDA-approved oncology drugs to patients and physicians, the trials that underpin the FDA-approval of these drugs must be free from bias and transparent. Therefore, we investigated the financial relationships between oncologist-authors of clinical trials that underpin FDA-approvals.
MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report?
Response: The key takeaway from our study is that oncologist-authors often do not fully disclose their financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies. Financial disclosures are important for the reasons of transparency and trust between physicians and other stakeholders, such as patients. Disclosing conflicts of interest helps readers interpret the findings of a research study, especially given the fact that drug companies finance their own drug trials.
MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this work?
Response: In the future, beyond recommending that authors fully disclose all financial relationships with the sponsor of the trial, I recommend that journals use the Open Payments Database to verify the accuracy and completeness of author disclosure statements. Doing so is a small first step toward mitigating the potential for financial bias in the oncology literature.”
Disclosures: I do not have anything else to add. None of the authors have conflicts of interest – financial or otherwise.
Citation:
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Last Updated on August 30, 2018 by Marie Benz MD FAAD