Accuracy of Financial Disclosures in Radiology Journals

Background The accuracy and completeness of self-disclosures for value of industry payments by authors publishing in radiology journals are not well known. Objective The aim of this study was to assess the accuracy of financial disclosures by US authors in five prominent radiology journals. Methods We reviewed financial disclosures provided by US-based authors in five prominent radiology journals from original research and review articles published in 2021. For each author, payment reports were extracted from the Open Payments Database (OPD) in the previous 36 months related to general category, research, and ownership payments categories. We analyzed each author individually to determine if the reported disclosures matched results from OPD. Results A total of 4076 authorships, including 3406 unique authors, were selected from 643 articles across the five journals. 1388 (1032 unique authors) received industry payments within the previous 36 months, with a median total amount received per authorship of $6,650 (interquartile range = $355 to $87,725). 61 (4.4%) authors disclosed all industry relationships, 205 (14.8%) disclosed some of the OPD-reported relationships, and 1122 (80.8%) failed to disclose any relationship. Undisclosed payments totaled $186,578,350 representing 67.2% of all payments. Radiology had the highest proportion of authorships who disclosed some or all OPD-reported relationships (32.3%), compared to JVIR (18.2%), AJNR (17.3%), JACR (13.1%), and AJR (10.3%). Conclusions Financial relationships with industry are common among US physician authors in prominent radiology journals and non-disclosure rates are high.