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Is There An Association Between Industry Payments And The Reported Results After Nerve Repair Using Conduits Or Grafts?
Nienke A. Krijnen, Ishan S. Patel, Onyedi Moses, Kacey Marra, Robert J. Goitz, Teun Teunis
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
2025-01-10
Presenter: Nienke Krijnen
Affidavit:
Yes
Director Name: Vu Nguyen
Author Category: Fellow Plastic Surgery
Presentation Category: Clinical
Abstract Category: Hand
Purpose: Nerve conduits and grafts are increasingly used in nerve surgery. Their development was facilitated by the strong collaboration between physicians and industry, but as a result much of current literature on their use is funded by industry. The potential association between industry payments and the reported results is unknown.
Methods: We systematically searched PubMed, Embase, Medline and Cochrane for studies reporting on outcomes (Medical Research Council Classification [MRCC], 2PD, SWMF) from nerve repair using non-autologous nerve conduits or grafts, published from 2012 to April 2024. We screened 2677 articles and included 41 that reported on 1703 nerve repairs (1454 allografts and 249 conduits). MR was defined as MRCC ≥S3/M3. Amount of nerve-related payments received by each author was extracted from the Open Payments database (OPD) from 2013 to 2022.
Results: All but for one study included authors who received nerve-related payments (median $36,948 per author, range $0 to $410,486). All articles reporting poor MR received less than $20.000 dollars nerve-related payments per author. Also, poor outcomes of 2PD and SWMF testing were exclusively reported in articles with less nerve-related payments.
Conclusion: We found a strong financial relationship between authors and industry in studies on nerve conduits and grafts. There is some indication of a potential association between lower industry payments and diminished reported recovery. Combining this with the fact that MRC, 2PD and SWMF are somewhat subjective outcomes, we need randomized, double blinded studies to justify the costs of grafts or conduits, or the donor site morbidity of autografts.
