Disclosure of Industry Relationships by Otolaryngologists

This study aims to characterize how often otolaryngologists disclose relevant industry payments in publications and identify characteristics of these industry relationships.

A cross-sectional database and bibliometric analysis.

Open Payments Database and PubMed.

Publications by the 10 highest-compensated otolaryngologists from each of 12 representative medical device and drug companies from 2018 to 2020 were assessed for disclosure of potential conflicts of interest in the years following payment through 2023.

After excluding 52 physicians who did not publish in this period, 102 individuals received a combined $8,473,091.68, with an individual median of 15 payments (interquartile range [IQR] = 47) and median compensation of $18,522.77 (IQR = $53,965.52) from 1 or more of the 12 companies analyzed. The median number of publications per author was 10 (IQR = 25), and the median h-index of the authors was 16 (IQR = 28). Of the 1735 publications, 114 were classified as relevant, either because the study involved the evaluation of a device manufactured by one of the analyzed companies or because one of the companies funded the study. Of these, 23 (20.1%) were missing personal disclosure by the author. Of the physicians analyzed, the most represented subspecialty was rhinology (n = 47, 31%) followed by otology (n = 18, 11.8%).

Although most publications in the years following payments from device companies were not deemed to have potential conflicts of interest, a notable proportion of those with authors who received payments lacked relevant financial disclosure. As transparency of relevant industry relationships has received increased attention, appropriate disclosure is recommended.