Financial Conflicts of Interest Among Physician Authors of ACR Appropriateness Criteria

Abstract

BackgroundThe accuracy and completeness of self-disclosures by authors of imaging guidelines are not well known. ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to assess the accuracy of financial disclosures by US authors of ACR appropriateness criteria. MethodsWe reviewed financial disclosures provided by US-based authors of all ACR-AC published in 2019, 2021 and 2023. For each US- based author, payment reports were extracted from the Open Payments Database (OPD) in the previous 36 months related to general category and research payments categories. We analyzed each author individually to determine if the reported disclosures matched results from OPD. ResultsA total of 633 authorships, including 333 unique authors were included from 38 ACR AC articles in 2019, with 606 authorships (387 unique authors) from 35 ACR-AC articles published in 2021, and 540 authorships (367 unique authors) from 32 ACR AC articles published in 2023. Among authors who received industry payments, failure to disclose any financial relationship was seen in 125/147 unique authors in 2019, 142/148 authors in 2021 and 95/125 unique authors in 2023. The proportion of nondisclosed total value of payments was 86.1% in 2019, 88.6% in 2021 and 56.7% in 2023. General category payments were nondisclosed in 94.1% in 2019, 89.7% in 2021 and 94.4% in 2023 by payment value. ConclusionIndustry payments to authors of radiology guidelines are common and frequently undisclosed.