The disclosure slide-Informative or obligatory, 5 years of SSO Cancer Symposium oral presentations

Financial disclosure (FD) highlights potential conflicts of interest but is often overlooked at academic conferences.

Retrospective review of 2015-2019 Society of Surgical Oncology Cancer Symposium oral presentation slide and/or verbal FD frequency, duration, and content.

Of 963 presentations, 331 (34%) omitted disclosure slide/verbalization. 575 (60%) included a slide, 551 (57%) gave verbal disclosure and 133 (14%) stated relevance. 164 presentations (17%) cited 1 + FD. 2019 had greater median FDs/talk than 2015-2018 (3.50 vs. 2.00; p = .010). Compared to 2015-2018, 2019 yielded shorter median slide display of all disclosures (2.00 s vs. 2.47 s; p = .006), median 1 + FD display (3.37 s vs. 4.81 s; p = .04) and median 1 + FD verbalization (2.81 s vs. 3.66 s; p = .54). 2019 all disclosure verbalization increased (1.97 s vs. 1.14 s; p < .001). Multivariable modeling showed longer display with 2015-2018 (+1.3 s, 95% confidence interval [CI] -0.06 to 2.5 s, p = .04), <4 authors (+3.2 s, 95% CI: 2.1-4.3 s; p < .001) and longer verbalization with 2019 (+0.8 s, 95% CI: 0.2-1.4 s; p = .01), relevance (+1.0 s, 95% CI: 0.4-1.6 s; p = .002), ≤ 4 authors (+0.8 s, 95% CI: 0.3-1.3 s, p < .001) and noncommercial FD (+3.8 s, 95% CI: 2.0-5.0 s; p < .001). The five most cited commercial entities were in 39% of talks.

Presenters' FDs were brief or omitted. Despite FD increase, disclosure time decreased. Improved FD attention will highlight potential COIs.