Widespread Author Conflicts of Interest May Skew Findings of Clinical Cancer Research

In analyzing 1,534 clinical cancer studies published in respected medical journals, University of Michigan researchers found that almost 30 percent of authors had financial connections to pharmaceutical companies, according to an article published in the June 15, 2009, print issue of Cancer.

Twenty nine percent of the studies published in eight respected journals had conflicts of interest apparent from author declarations and authorship lists, according to Reshma Jagsi, M.D., and his colleagues at the University of Michigan. Those conflicts included industry funding, consulting fees to authors and co-authorship by industry employees. The studies were published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Lancet, the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Lancet Oncology, Clinical Cancer Research and CANCER, stated a press release by the American Cancer Society.

Conflicts of interest most often were found in articles with primary authors from medical oncology departments, 45 percent; those from North America, 33 percent; and articles with male first and senior authors, 37 percent.

Randomized clinical trials that assessed patient survival were more likely to report a survival advantage associated with an intervention when a conflict of interest existed, the press release stated. The authors noted that the trials form the foundation for approving drugs, technologies and diagnostic tests that are used in clinical practice.

In fact, the authors found that studies funded by industry were more likely to focus on treatment, 62 percent versus 36 percent, and less on epidemiology, prevention or diagnostic methods.

“Attempts to disentangle the cancer research effort from industry merit further attention,” the authors stated. “And journals should embrace both rigorous standards of disclosure and heightened scrutiny when conflicts exist.”

The article “Frequency, nature, effects and correlates of conflicts of interest in published clinical cancer research,” by Reshma Jagsi, et al, was published online May 11 in the journal Cancer, with a print issue date of June 15, 2009.