








































This is an open access article under the terms of a license that permits non-commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited.  
© 2021 The Authors. Société Internationale d'Urologie Journal, published by the Société Internationale d'Urologie, Canada.
This is an open access article under the terms of a license that permits non-commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited.  
© 2022 The Authors. Société Internationale d'Urologie Journal, published by the Société Internationale d'Urologie, Canada.

Key Words Competing Interests Article Information

Conferences, conflict of interest, urology, 
disclosure slides, guidelines

None declared.

Funding: None

Received on February 16, 2022 
Accepted on March 30, 2022 
This article has been peer reviewed.

Soc Int Urol J. 2022;3(4):276–279

DOI: 10.48083/SPQL8302

276 SIUJ  •  Volume 3, Number 4  •  July 2022 SIUJ.ORG

BRIEF COMMUNICATION

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

Anique Le Roux,1 Naji J. Touma2

1 School of Medicine, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada  2 Department of Urology, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada

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.

Collaboration between physicians and pharmaceutical or device companies can result in worthy advancement in 
research, education, and clinical care. However, such interactions invariably result in real or perceived conflicts of 
interest (COIs). Short of prohibition, disclosure is a critical aspect of managing COIs. Scientific meetings are an 
important vehicle of continuing medical education (CME). An oral presentation at such meetings, especially national 
or international ones, is a prestigious perch that confers on the speaker a level of endorsement from the association of 
their academic credibility. In addition, commercial sponsorship at such meetings is substantial, leading to concerns 
that sponsors may have undue influence over program content and speakers[1]. Therefore, it is in the interests of both 
the speaker and the meeting organizers to have full and transparent disclosures to allay concerns of bias. At scientific 
meetings, these disclosures often take the form of a slide at the outset of a presentation, laying out the possible 
conflicts and their nature. There have been several reports outlining the inadequacies of disclosure slides in CME 
events[2–5], but none in urological conferences. In urology, there has been some concerns of inadequate disclosures 
among guideline authors[6]. The hypothesis of this study is that disclosure slides at major urology conferences are 
displayed for too short a time and without providing an adequate context of the nature of COIs, rendering a proper 
evaluation of bias impossible.

With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, major conferences switched to a virtual format in 2020. We prospec-
tively evaluated oral presentations from the two major urological conferences occurring in 2020: the European 
Association of Urology (EAU) conference, held 17–19 July, and the American Urologic Association (AUA) Annual 
Meeting, held 26–27 June, as well as the national meeting of the Canadian Urological Association (CUA), held 22–26 
June.  The sessions evaluated included all plenary sessions, state of the art lectures, debates, panels, and surgical tech-
nique demonstrations. We excluded the various poster sessions. A single investigator recorded all disclosure slides 
and extracted information on COI presentations. Primary data points evaluated were inclusion of a disclosure slide, 
number of conflicts listed, time spent on the disclosure slide, types of conflicts described and contextualization of 
disclosure slide. The context parameters were “said nothing,” “vague,” or “context.” Speakers were categorized as 
vague if they said only “these are my disclosures.” Anything they said beyond that, even simply reading out the COI, 

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https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9072-5440
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1030-1689
mailto:njtouma%40gmail.com?subject=SIUJ


was categorized as providing context. Secondary end 
points included frequency of disclosure and number of 
conflicts per urologic subspecialty.

A comparison between the different conferences was 
carried out to look for meaningful differences in disclo-
sure slide reporting with a Pearson chi-square analysis.

In total, 557 speakers were evaluated from the CUA 
(n = 36), AUA (n = 160), and EAU (n = 361). Overall, 
49% of speakers had no disclosure slide. Among speak-
ers presenting a disclosure slide, the median number of 
conflicts was 5 (IQR 2–11), median time spent on the 
slide was 4.38 seconds (IQR 2.76–6.25) and the median 
word count was 20 (IQR 13–34). Among the speak-
ers with a disclosure slide, 34.8% provided context, 
50% were vague, and 15.2% said nothing. The types of 
conflict listed are shown in Figure 1.

The AUA had the highest rate of speakers without 
disclosure slides (61.9%), followed by the CUA (44.4%) 
and the EAU (43.8%) (P = 0.001).

Speakers presenting on oncology topics were the most 
likely to offer a disclosure slide, and they had the highest 
median number of COI (Figure 2). The median number 
of conf licts for each subspecialty topic was 8 (IQR 

3–17) for oncology, 4 (IQR 2–5.75) for endourology, 3.5  
(IQR 2–8) for reconstructive surgery, 3 (IQR 2.5–10) for 
andrology, 1 (IQR 1) for transplant, and 3 (IQR 1–7) for 
other topics.

Reporting of disclosure slides across conferences 
and specialties is inconsistent, ranging from 42.2% to 
87%[3,7,8], which is in keeping with the findings of the 
current study (51%). The reasons for this broad range are 
multifactorial, but conference guidelines play a signifi-
cant role. Even amongst a relatively homogeneous group 
of urologists, disclosure slide reporting was lower for 
the AUA than for the EAU and the CUA. Ju et al. found 
similar discrepancies in reporting by spine surgeons 
depending on the conference[9].  Common reasons for 
not disclosing were that presenters believed their presen-
tation topic was unrelated to their payment or that they 
had misunderstood the disclosure guidelines[8]. For 
instance, disclosure reporting dropped from 79.3% 
when the payment was related to the topic of presen-
tation to 50% when it was unrelated[8]. To resolve this 
confusion, some have proposed that conferences should 
develop a standardized guideline for disclosure slide 
reporting, similar to  the form developed by the Interna-
tional Council of Medical Journal Editors, a group that 

FIGURE 1.

Types of conflicts listed as a proportion of the total presentations 

10 20 30 40 50

Consultants

Advisory Board

Speaker Bureau/ Honoraria

Other

Research Studies/Funding PI

Travel Grants

Academic Relations

Clinical Trials

Research Grant

Patent 

Employed by Government

Founder

Stocks

0

Percentage of Conflicts Listed in Presentations

277SIUJ.ORG SIUJ  •  Volume 3, Number 4  •  July 2022

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

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aims to provide a standardized document for reporting 
conflicts of interests for peer reviewed journals[10].

Among speakers who did present COI, very little time 
was spent on disclosure slides. Similar findings have 
been reported in other studies, with time spent ranging 
from 2 to 5 seconds[1-3,6]. The average reading speed 
of an individual is 3.8 words per second[11]. With 4.4 
seconds as the median time spent per slide and a median 
word count of 20, the average reader would not have 
enough time to accurately read the slide. The value of 
presenting a disclosure slide comes into question when 
not enough time is allotted for the reader to accurately 
interpret it.

Even with the broadest definition, only 34.8% of 
presenters with a disclosure slide gave context and 
explained their disclosures to the audience. The inclu-

sion of the disclosure slide appears mostly performative 
with questionable additional value. One explanation 
for this could be the constraints on the time allowed for 
presentations. A proposed solution would be to exclude 
disclosure slide time from the overall presentation time, 
thereby allowing researchers to fully explain COI[2].

In conclusion, there was low reporting of COI across 
major urology conferences in 2020. Even when COI is 
reported, too little time is spent on disclosure slides, 
and so few are contextualized that their value is ques-
tionable. Standardization of disclosure reporting across 
conferences with clear expectations and enforcements 
may help alleviate the problem. Further, COI reporting 
could be excluded from the allotted presentation time, 
and/or a QR code could be provided to enable attendees 
to obtain more detailed information about COI.

FIGURE 2.

Percentage of disclosure slide presentation by subspecialty topic 

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Presentations Presenting Disclosure Slides (%)

Su
bs

pe
ci

al
ite

s

Endourology/MIS

Oncology

Reconstructive Surgery

Pedriatrics

Andrology and BPH

Transplants

Others

278 SIUJ  •  Volume 3, Number 4  •  July 2022 SIUJ.ORG

BRIEF COMMUNICATION

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