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      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

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          Abstract

          Background

          A previous study found that 2 of 29 (6.9%) meta-analyses published in high-impact journals in 2009 reported included drug trials’ funding sources, and none reported trial authors’ financial conflicts of interest (FCOIs) or industry employment. It is not known if reporting has improved since 2009. Our objectives were to (1) investigate the extent to which pharmaceutical industry funding and author-industry FCOIs and employment from included drug trials are reported in meta-analyses published in high-impact journals and (2) compare current reporting with results from 2009.

          Methods

          We searched PubMed (January 2017–October 2018) for systematic reviews with meta-analyses including ≥ 2 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of patented drugs. We included 3 meta-analyses published January 2017–October 2018 from each of 4 high-impact general medicine journals, high-impact journals from 5 specialty areas, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, as in the previous study.

          Results

          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 FCOIs, and none reported trial author-industry employment.

          Protocol Publication

          A protocol was uploaded to the Open Science Framework prior to initiating the study. https://osf.io/8xt5p/

          Limitations

          We examined only a relatively small number of meta-analyses from selected high-impact journals and compared results to a similarly small sample from an earlier time period.

          Conclusions

          Reporting of drug trial sponsorship and author FCOIs in meta-analyses published in high-impact journals has increased since 2009 but is still suboptimal. Standards on reporting of trial funding described in the forthcoming revised PRISMA statement should be adapted and enforced by journals to improve reporting.

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          Most cited references30

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          Pharmaceutical industry sponsorship and research outcome and quality: systematic review.

          To investigate whether funding of drug studies by the pharmaceutical industry is associated with outcomes that are favourable to the funder and whether the methods of trials funded by pharmaceutical companies differ from the methods in trials with other sources of support. Medline (January 1966 to December 2002) and Embase (January 1980 to December 2002) searches were supplemented with material identified in the references and in the authors' personal files. Data were independently abstracted by three of the authors and disagreements were resolved by consensus. 30 studies were included. Research funded by drug companies was less likely to be published than research funded by other sources. Studies sponsored by pharmaceutical companies were more likely to have outcomes favouring the sponsor than were studies with other sponsors (odds ratio 4.05; 95% confidence interval 2.98 to 5.51; 18 comparisons). None of the 13 studies that analysed methods reported that studies funded by industry was of poorer quality. Systematic bias favours products which are made by the company funding the research. Explanations include the selection of an inappropriate comparator to the product being investigated and publication bias.
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            Interval estimation for the difference between independent proportions: comparison of eleven methods

            Several existing unconditional methods for setting confidence intervals for the difference between binomial proportions are evaluated. Computationally simpler methods are prone to a variety of aberrations and poor coverage properties. The closely interrelated methods of Mee and Miettinen and Nurminen perform well but require a computer program. Two new approaches which also avoid aberrations are developed and evaluated. A tail area profile likelihood based method produces the best coverage properties, but is difficult to calculate for large denominators. A method combining Wilson score intervals for the two proportions to be compared also performs well, and is readily implemented irrespective of sample size.
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              • Article: not found

              Checkpoint Inhibitors in Metastatic EGFR-Mutated Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer-A Meta-Analysis.

              We performed a meta-analysis to assess the role of immune checkpoint inhibitors as second-line therapy in EGFR-mutant advanced NSCLC.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                carla.benea@mail.mcgill.ca
                kimberly.turner@mail.mcgill.ca
                michelle.roseman@mail.mcgill.ca
                lisa.bero@sydney.edu.au
                jlexchin@yorku.ca
                turnere@ohsu.edu
                brett.thombs@mcgill.ca
                Journal
                Syst Rev
                Syst Rev
                Systematic Reviews
                BioMed Central (London )
                2046-4053
                8 April 2020
                8 April 2020
                2020
                : 9
                : 77
                Affiliations
                [1 ]GRID grid.414980.0, ISNI 0000 0000 9401 2774, Lady Davis Institute of the Jewish General Hospital, ; 4333 Cote Ste Catherine Road, Montreal, Quebec H3T 1E4 Canada
                [2 ]GRID grid.14709.3b, ISNI 0000 0004 1936 8649, Department of Psychiatry, , McGill University, ; Montreal, Quebec Canada
                [3 ]Kingsway Medical Centre Family Health Organization, Toronto, Ontario Canada
                [4 ]GRID grid.1013.3, ISNI 0000 0004 1936 834X, Charles Perkins Centre and School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine and Health, , University of Sydney, ; Camperdown, New South Wales Australia
                [5 ]GRID grid.21100.32, ISNI 0000 0004 1936 9430, School of Health Policy and Management, , York University, ; Toronto, Ontario Canada
                [6 ]GRID grid.231844.8, ISNI 0000 0004 0474 0428, Emergency Department, , University Health Network, ; Toronto, Ontario Canada
                [7 ]GRID grid.484322.b, Behavioral Health and Neurosciences Division, , VA Portland Health Care System, ; Portland, Oregon USA
                [8 ]GRID grid.5288.7, ISNI 0000 0000 9758 5690, Department of Psychiatry, , Oregon Health & Science University, ; Portland, Oregon USA
                [9 ]GRID grid.14709.3b, ISNI 0000 0004 1936 8649, Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health, , McGill University, ; Montreal, Quebec Canada
                [10 ]GRID grid.14709.3b, ISNI 0000 0004 1936 8649, Department of Medicine, , McGill University, ; Montreal, Quebec Canada
                [11 ]GRID grid.14709.3b, ISNI 0000 0004 1936 8649, Biomedical Ethics Unit, , McGill University, ; Montreal, Quebec Canada
                [12 ]GRID grid.14709.3b, ISNI 0000 0004 1936 8649, Department of Psychology, , McGill University, ; Montreal, Quebec Canada
                [13 ]GRID grid.14709.3b, ISNI 0000 0004 1936 8649, Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, , McGill University, ; Montreal, Quebec Canada
                Article
                1318
                10.1186/s13643-020-01318-5
                7140556
                32268911
                70bc91a6-132f-45bd-8e27-1022d8052c7a
                © The Author(s) 2020

                Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

                History
                : 5 September 2019
                : 1 March 2020
                Categories
                Research
                Custom metadata
                © The Author(s) 2020

                Public health
                financial conflicts of interest,reporting,meta-analysis,research methods
                Public health
                financial conflicts of interest, reporting, meta-analysis, research methods

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