3510 Academic influence in gynecologic oncology is associated with industry funding: an analysis of the Open Payments database

Abstract

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: Industry payments to physicians can present a conflict of interest. The Physician Payments Sunshine Act mandates the disclosure of these financial relationships to increase transparency. Recent studies in other surgical specialties have shown that research productivity is associated with greater industry funding. In this study, we characterize the relationship between academic influence and industry funding among academic gynecologic oncologists. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Departmental websites were used to identify academic gynecologist oncologists and their demographic information. The Hirsch index (h-index) relates an author’s number of publications to number of times referenced by other publications, a validated measure of an author’s academic influence. This was obtained from the Scopus database. The Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services Open Payments online database was searched for all industry payments in 2017. The NIH Reporter online database was searched for active grants. Goodness of fit testing showed that all variables followed nonparametric distributions. Medians were compared using Mann-Whitney U tests and Kruskal-Wallis analysis of variance with post-hoc Dunn’s test. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Four hundred and sixty-six academic gynecologic oncologists were included in the analysis. In 2017, 89.7% of this group received industry funding totaling $41.4 million. Median industry funding was $453 [IQR $67-19684] and median h-index was 14 [IQR 8-26]. Only 8.1% of gynecologic oncologists were NIH grant recipients and they received significantly higher industry payments ($357 vs. 11,168, P<0.01). Gender and academic rank were not associated with industry funding. Gynecologic oncologists in the highest decile of industry funding received a median payment of $447,651[N=46, IQR $285,770 – 896,310] totaling $36.5 million. The median h-index for this top-earning decile was 23 [N=46, IQR 16.5-30.3]. When stratified by payment amount, median h index increased but only reached statistical significance in the highest cohort receiving >$100,000 (N = 63, P<0.05). DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: The majority of academic gynecologic oncologists receive industry funding although there are large variations in payments. Those receiving the largest payments are more likely to hold NIH grants and have greater academic influence.