Evaluation of Industry Relationships Among Authors of Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses Regarding Ménières Disease.

OBJECTIVES To quantify the presence of conflicts of interest (COI) in SRs and MAs of Menieres disease treatment and identify any related secondary characteristics of these articles. METHODS A search was conducted on May 28, 2020 to search MEDLINE and Embase databases for SRs or MAs pertaining to Menieres disease published between September 1, 2016 and June 2, 2020. A risk of bias assessment was performed using the Cochrane Collaboration risk of bias assessment criteria. RESULTS A total of 13 systematic reviews conducted by 49 authors met the inclusion criteria. Of the 49 authors, 7 (14.3%) were found to have some form of COI. Of these 7 authors, 1 (14.3%) completely disclosed all COI within the SR, 1 (14.3%) disclosed one or more COI but were found to have an additional undisclosed COI, and 5 (71.4%) were found to have only undisclosed COI. One of 2 industry funded SRs (50%) had a high risk of bias, and 1 (50%) of the non-industry sponsored SRs were found to have a high risk of bias. CONCLUSIONS Overall authors of SRs pertaining to Menieres disease appear to be properly disclosing COI at higher rates than other fields of medicine; however, further room for improvement has been noted.