The Value of Conflicts of Interest Disclosures in Oral Presentations at Major Urological Conferences

Abstract

The objective of this study is to assess the value of disclosure slide reporting at major urology conferences. In total, 557 speakers were evaluated from the conferences of the Canadian Urology Association (n = 36), American Urology Association (n = 160), and European Association of Urology (n = 361) in 2020. Overall, 49.0% of speakers had no disclosure slide. Among speakers presenting a disclosure slide, the median number of conflicts was 5, median time spent on the slide was 4.4 seconds, and 34.8% gave context to disclosures. Overall disclosure slide reporting seems inconsistent, and given how little time is spent on them and the lack of contextualization, their value is unclear.

Keywords

• conferences
• conflict of interest
• urology
• disclosure slides
• guidelines