Abstract
Purpose :
To examine the relationship between industry funding and outcome reporting bias in high-quality studies investigating use of ocriplasmin for patients with vitreomacular traction (VMT) and macular hole (MH).
Methods :
This systematic review in PubMed and Ovid MEDLINE examined all randomized clinical trials and meta-analyses published in journals with impact factor of ≥2 that investigated effectiveness of ocriplasmin in patients with vitreomacular traction and macular holes. The main outcome measure was correspondence between the studies’ main statistical outcome and their abstract conclusion wording. Each article was reviewed by three independent observers and was evaluated for source of funding, industry co-authorship, study quality, statistical significance of main outcome measure, correspondence between results of main outcome measure and abstract conclusion, and journal impact factor. Funding was determined by public disclosure. Discrepancies were resolved by consensus. The statistical analyses used were the Mann-Whitney U test and the Fischer’s exact test.
Results :
Twelve studies met inclusion criteria, of which 11 were industry funded and 1 was non-industry funded; 11 (91.67%) showed correspondence between outcome and abstract conclusion, without difference between industry-funded and nonindustry-funded publications (P = 1.00) or between publications in journals with high impact factor (≥3) versus low impact factor (≥2 and <3) (P = .10).
Conclusions :
In high-quality studies of ocriplasmin for vitreomacular traction and macular hole, neither industry funding nor journal impact factor affected the rate of outcome reporting bias.
This abstract was presented at the 2019 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Vancouver, Canada, April 28 - May 2, 2019.