Conflicts-of-interest disclosures at the 2010 AUGS Scientific Meeting

Abstract

Objectives: To describe authors' trends in reporting conflicts of interest in their research at the 2010 Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Urogynecologic Society.

Methods: We extracted data regarding financial disclosures during oral presentations and compared the conflicts of interest disclosed during oral presentations with those enumerated in the published abstract.

Results: We collected data on 86 of 100 oral presentations given at the 2010 American Urogynecologic Society scientific meeting. Seventy-five (87%) of the 86 presentations included a disclosure slide. Twenty-six of the 86 presenters had no verbal mention of potential conflicts of interest. There was discordance between disclosures printed in the abstract and those listed in the oral presentation in 49% of the papers, with slides providing more comprehensive information in 64% of the entries.

Conclusions: Despite instructions to the contrary, 13% of presentations in 2010 did not address potential influence by a financial subsidy. Explicit instructions, a streamlined reporting process, and prioritization by our scientific community may improve the consistency and uniformity of financial disclosure reporting.