Abstract
Purpose
Conflict of interest reporting at annual orthopaedic surgical meetings aims to ensure transparency of surgeon-industry relationships. Increasing rigor in the reporting guidelines provides a unique opportunity to understand the impact of industry relationships in the conduct of orthopaedic research. We examined self-reported conflicts by surgeons presenting original research in arthroplasty and trauma meetings.
Method
We reviewed the proceedings of the 2009 Annual American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons (AAHKS) and Orthopaedic Trauma Association (OTA). Information including the number of studies, self-reported conflicts, nature of conflicts, and direction of study results were extracted. Conflicts were compared between arthroplasty and trauma meetings.
Results
A total of 85 AAHKS abstracts (45 presentations and 40 posters) and 201 OTA abstracts (88 presentations and 113 posters) were included. Abstracts presented at the AAHKS revealed significantly more conflicts than those presented at the OTA (84/85 presentations, 98.8%, versus 156/201 presentations, 77.6%, respectively, p value < 0.0001). On average, papers at the AAHKS and OTA meetings had similar numbers of conflicts per paper (9.5 versus 9.8, respectively). 213 (52.6%) of authors at the AAHKS revealed at least one conflict compared to 364 (40.6%) of authors at the OTA (p value < 0.0001). The most common conflicts included research, institutional, fellowship, and grant support (48.3%) and paid consultant, salary or staff (20.2%).
Conclusion
Our findings suggest that surgeon-industry relationships are critical to the conduct of research. The high proportion of papers with self-reported conflicts of interest supports increasing transparency and rigor in reporting guidelines at orthopaedic meetings.
