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In Reply

Department of Medical Oncology, Albert Einstein Hospital, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Monika K. Krzyzanowska

Department of Medical Oncology & Hematology, Princess Margaret Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

We appreciate the comments of Dr Go and colleagues regarding our recently published article about financial conflict of interest (FCOI) disclosure by authors of clinical trials and editorials published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO).¹ Go et al present information from their own work on the epidemiology of FCOI disclosure by authors publishing in JCO,² and their study both confirms and complements our findings that financial relationships between investigators and the pharmaceutical industry are common, often involve funds not directly relevant to the conduct of research, and that the frequency of disclosure varies by type of article. Similar findings have recently been reported for research presented at ASCO meetings.³ What neither our study nor the work by Go et al can answer is whether different types of research (ie, clinical trials v other types of research) lead to different relationships with industry or whether authors disclose differently depending on the type of study.

An important point brought up by Go and colleagues is the variability in and often complete lack of disclosure of monetary values of FCOI in medical journals. While it has become fairly standard for most medical journals to collect some type of information regarding conflicts of interest for all submitted articles, the type of information collected varies across journals, and many journals do not share this information with their readers either at all or in limited format. We were disappointed when JCO had stopped publishing the detailed COI disclosure information that made our study and the study by Dr Go possible. We echo the recommendations of Go et al that this information should be presented to the readers. Ideally, all medical journals should adopt more standardized methods of eliciting and publishing of this information.

Lastly, we concur with Go et al that further research is needed to evaluate how FCOI affects the conduct and interpretation of cancer research. We have recently initiated a study to look at the impact of FCOI on the interpretation of clinical trials. The preliminary results were presented at the ASCO Annual Meeting in 2007⁴ and suggest that personal financial relationships between investigators and the pharmaceutical industry may affect how study results are interpreted. Specifically, we found that articles with authors that declare FCOI were more likely to have highly positive conclusions that used superlatives to promote the experimental arm. However, as Dr Go indicates, such studies will not be possible without full disclosure from authors and cooperation from journals in sharing this information with the readership. Since research integrity is at stake, we believe this is an important line of investigation, and we encourage all journals to adopt more open publication policies regarding authors’ conflicts of interest.

AUTHORS’ DISCLOSURES OF POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

The author(s) indicated no potential conflicts of interest.

REFERENCES

1. Riechelmann RP, Wang L, O'Carroll A, et al: Disclosure of conflicts of interest by authors of clinical trials and editorials in oncology. J Clin Oncol 25:4642-4647, 2007[Abstract/Free Full Text]

2. George B, Simhan S, Lee JA, et al: Conflicts of interest among articles published in the J Clin Oncol. J Clin Oncol 25:18s, 2007 (suppl; abstr 6633)

3. Hampson LA, Joffe S, Fowler R, et al: Frequency, type, and monetary value of financial conflicts of interest in cancer clinical research. J Clin Oncol 25:3609-3614, 2007[Abstract/Free Full Text]

4. Riechelmann RP, Dounaevskaia VD, Taback N, et al: Source of funding, conflict of interest (COI) and the interpretation of cancer clinical trials. J Clin Oncol 25:18s, 2007 (suppl; abstr 6530)

This Article Full Text (PDF) Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a colleague Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Save to my personal folders Download to citation manager Google Scholar Articles by Riechelmann, R. P. Articles by Krzyzanowska, M. K. PubMed Articles by Riechelmann, R. P. Articles by Krzyzanowska, M. K.