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. 2012 Aug 16:345:e5155.
doi: 10.1136/bmj.e5155.

Reporting of conflicts of interest from drug trials in Cochrane reviews: cross sectional study

Michelle Roseman  1 , Erick H Turner, Joel Lexchin, James C Coyne, Lisa A Bero, Brett D Thombs
Affiliations

Reporting of conflicts of interest from drug trials in Cochrane reviews: cross sectional study

Michelle Roseman et al. BMJ. .

Abstract

Objectives: To investigate the degree to which Cochrane reviews of drug interventions published in 2010 reported conflicts of interest from included trials and, among reviews that reported this information, where it was located in the review documents.

Design: Cross sectional study.

Data sources: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.

Selection criteria: Systematic reviews of drug interventions published in 2010 in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, with review content classified as up to date in 2008 or later and with results from one or more randomised controlled trials.

Results: Of 151 included Cochrane reviews, 46 (30%, 95% confidence interval 24% to 38%) reported information on the funding sources of included trials, including 30 (20%, 14% to 27%) that reported information on trial funding for all included trials and 16 (11%, 7% to 17%) that reported for some, but not all, trials. Only 16 of the 151 Cochrane reviews (11%, 7% to 17%) provided any information on trial author-industry financial ties or trial author-industry employment. Information on trial funding and trial author-industry ties was reported in one to seven locations within each review, with no consistent reporting location observed.

Conclusions: Most Cochrane reviews of drug trials published in 2010 did not provide information on trial funding sources or trial author-industry financial ties or employment. When this information was reported, location of reporting was inconsistent across reviews.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare that: no authors had any financial support for the submitted work; JL was a consultant to a law firm representing Apotex in 2007, a consultant to the Canadian federal government in a lawsuit challenging the Canadian ban on direct to consumer advertising of prescription drugs in 2007-08, and a consultant to a law firm representing a plaintiff in a case against Allergan in 2010; LAB has received a grant from the Cochrane Collaboration Methodological Fund to examine how systematic reviewers identify unpublished drug trial data, and is an active member of the Cochrane Collaboration.

Figures

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Flow chart of selection of Cochrane reviews of drug trials published in 2010 with searches up to date as of 2008 or later
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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