Purpose: To retrospectively characterize the extent and nature of financial relationships with industry that are disclosed in the abstracts of scientific papers presented at the 2003 Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Annual Meeting and to retrospectively assess whether the presence of relationships between researchers and industry was associated with a discussion on the use of products or devices that are not yet approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Materials and methods: Printed abstracts of scientific papers published in the 2003 Radiological Society of North America Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting Program were classified according to the number and type of financial relationships disclosed. Also recorded was whether the abstracts discussed non-FDA-approved use of a product. Abstracts with and those without disclosures were then compared by using the Fisher exact test with respect to the percentage of abstracts that reported non-FDA-approved use.
Results: Of the 1549 published abstracts, 271 (17%) disclosed at least one author with financial ties to a company whose products or services were reported. The most common disclosures were for authors who were employees (39%), corporate grant recipients (34%), corporate consultants (23%), or shareholders (18%) of the corporation whose product was studied. A total of 87 (32%) of 271 abstracts with disclosed corporate relationships discussed non-FDA-approved use of a commercial product compared with 197 (15%) of 1278 abstracts with no disclosed tie to industry (P<.001).
Conclusion: RSNA abstracts in which authors disclosed corporate financial relationships were twice as likely as those without such disclosures to discuss non-FDA-approved use of a commercial product. This raises the possibility that corporate relationships may influence radiology research.
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