Industry Payments to Foot and Ankle Surgeons and Their Effect on Total Ankle Arthroplasty Outcomes

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Open Payments public database provides a means for increased transparency of physicians' financial relationships with industry. Total ankle arthroplasty is a procedure with long-term clinical implications and variable outcomes. We compared physician-reported conflict-of-interest (COI) disclosures in the journal Foot & Ankle International (FAI) to CMS database information to evaluate for discrepancies.

Articles published in FAI reporting clinical outcomes of total ankle arthroplasty from 2015 and 2019 were reviewed. Payment information in the CMS database was cross-referenced with disclosure statements and International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) forms associated with the manuscript. Statistical analysis was performed to determine if industry payments were appropriately disclosed or influenced outcomes.

We reviewed 173 articles pertaining to ankle arthroplasty, with 27 meeting inclusion criteria. Of 120 total authors with 98 unique authors, 114 (95%) disclosed appropriately in disclosure statements. Twenty-two studies (82%) had appropriate declarations for the entire manuscript. For the 27 senior authors, only 2 discrepancies between manuscript disclosure and the Open Payments public database were noted, showing 13 total disclosures in the Open Payments public database vs 11 disclosed in the manuscript. There was no relationship between industry payments and the outcome of the manuscript (P = .725).

The majority of author disclosure statements accurately reflected the Open Payments public data. Additionally, payments were not significantly associated with positive outcomes reported for the specific implant. Overall, authors publishing on ankle arthroplasty in FAI are disclosing appropriately.

Level IV, systematic review; survey study; literature review.