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Frequency, Type, and Monetary Value of Financial Conflicts of Interest in Cancer Clinical Research

Lindsay A. Hampson, Steven Joffe, Robert Fowler, Joel Verter, Ezekiel J. Emanuel

From the Department of Bioethics, The Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD; Department of Pediatric Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Department of Medicine, Children's Hospital, Boston, MA; and Statistics Collaborative, Washington, DC

Address reprint requests to Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, PhD, Department of Bioethics, Building 10, Room 1C118, The Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892-1156; e-mail: eemanuel{at}nih.gov

Purpose Using data from American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meetings, we determined the frequency, type, and monetary value of researchers' financial interests.

Methods Financial disclosures for the 2004 (3,529 abstracts and 25,416 authors) and 2005 (3,556 abstracts and 26,181 authors) ASCO Annual Meetings were categorized into four groups: no author with a financial interest, research funding only, employment and leadership positions only, or at least one author with a personal financial interest. Interests were stratified by monetary value and other factors.

Results In 2004 and 2005, 23% of abstracts had one or more authors with a personal financial interest. More than 75% of all personal financial interests were valued at less than $10,000. More than 90% of financial interests of more than $100,000 were employment related. Fewer than 3.5% of authors with personal financial interests had interests valued at more than $100,000. Overall, 6.3% (2004) and 2.9% (2005) of abstracts only had research funding, whereas 7.3% (2004) and 6.9% (2005) had only commercial employment. In 2005, 60% of plenary sessions compared with 23.1% in general poster sessions and 17.3% for publish-only abstracts reported financial ties. Personal financial interests were more common among US authors compared with non-US authors (9.2% v 4.2%).

Conclusion About one fourth of abstracts at ASCO Annual Meetings have an author with a personal financial interest. Most personal financial interests are valued at less than $10,000 per year, whereas a majority valued at more than $100,000 are related to employees of commercial entities.

Supported by the National Institutes of Health intramural research program through the Department of Bioethics.

Authors' disclosures of potential conflicts of interest and author contributions are found at the end of this article.

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