Associations between Disclosed Conflicts of Interests and Abstract Prestige at the 2021 ASTRO Annual Meeting

Abstract

<h3>Purpose/Objective(s)</h3> There have been substantial and growing concerns about conflicts of interest (COI) involving clinical research. Using data from the American Society of Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) 2021 annual meeting, we assessed the frequency and type of COI and evaluated associations between COI and opportunity for oral presentation. <h3>Materials/Methods</h3> A web scraping program was used to capture all abstracts, authors, and COI disclosures from ASTRO's 63rd Annual Meeting issue of the Red Journal (11/1/21). COI disclosures were categorized into monetary (advisory board, consulting, honorarium, industry employment, patent, research funding, royalties, stock) or non-monetary (leadership role at professional society) disclosures. Abstracts were stratified based on acceptance as poster, quick pitch oral, or oral scientific presentation. Pearson's X² and independent t-test were used to determine differences across abstract categories. Binary logistic regression was used to determine factors that portended for monetary disclosures. Univariate and multivariate analysis was used to determine the impact of various disclosures on acceptance category. <h3>Results</h3> 1548 abstracts with 7529 authors were analyzed. Oral scientific sessions, quick pitch oral sessions, and poster sessions composed 148 (9.6%), 108 (7.0%), and 1292 (83.5%) abstracts, respectively. The median number of authors per abstract was 8 (range:1-44). 612 (39.5%) abstracts had no disclosures amongst listed authors, and 936 (60.5%) abstracts had at least one author noting a relevant disclosure. The most common types of disclosures were Research Funding, Consulting, and Honoraria (42.1%, 33.4%, and 28.7% of abstracts, respectively). 165 (10.7%) abstracts involved authors disclosing leadership at a professional society. There were 898 (58.0%) monetary disclosures and 165 (10.7%) non-monetary disclosures. Disclosure rates were significantly different (p=.001) between abstracts awarded posters 58.5%, quick pitch oral (67.6%), and oral scientific abstracts (72.3%). Oral scientific and quick pitch oral abstracts had higher rates of monetary disclosures relative to poster abstracts (70.3% and 65.7%, vs. 56.0%, respectively; p=.001). Abstracts that involved professional society leadership were more likely to report a monetary disclosure (91.5% vs. 54.0%; p<.001). On multivariate analysis, monetary disclosures were associated with abstracts written by authors with leadership at professional societies (OR: 7.763, CI 4.421-13.631; p<.0001), abstracts containing ≥5 authors (OR 3.589, CI 2.668-4.827; p<.0001), and abstracts awarded oral presentations (OR 1.306, CI 1.086-1.567; p=.005). <h3>Conclusion</h3> Most abstracts at the 2021 ASTRO annual meeting had COI disclosures, and most disclosures were monetary. Rates of disclosure increased as abstract prestige increased, and monetary disclosures were associated with oral presentations and abstracts written by authors with leadership roles in professional societies.