This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Commercial bias not detected in autologous chondrocyte implantation studies
The literature review study looked only at English language research on classic non-matrix ACI for the knee.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
FLORENCE — A literature review investigating commercial bias in studies of autologous chondrocyte implantation found that industry funding did not appear to influence study outcomes, according to a surgeon speaking here.
James H. Lubowitz, MD, from Taos, N.M., and colleagues conducted the literature review to explore any possible connection between published results with autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI) and industry sponsorship.
The researchers searched the online search engine PubMed to identify appropriate studies and only included those which evaluated outcomes from ACI performed in the knee. They excluded animal studies, review studies and studies involving seeding membranes with cultured chondrocytes, a second-generation ACI approach, said Lubowitz, who presented the findings at the International Society of Arthroscopy, Knee Surgery and Orthopaedic Sports Medicine Congress.
Investigators hypothesized there would be no difference between outcomes of commercially funded ACI studies vs. non-funded ones. They defined a commercially funded study as one that had commercial funding disclosed by the author or, if the author did not disclose a commercial relationship, one in which any co-authors previously had an ACI study commercially funded.
In all, the researchers included 23 studies, 70% of which were commercially funded. Lubowitz said they found no difference for the outcome measures based on that funding.
The findings differ from another review study recently published in Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research, which found a bias among similar studies.
Lubowitz noted that his review did have some limitations. He and his co-investigators may have introduced some bias by excluding studies not in English and those with small sample sizes.
Also, not every author of the studies analyzed clearly reported subjective and objective outcomes and they used diverse outcome measures, according to the abstract.
For more information:
- James H. Lubowitz, MD, receives research/institutional support from Smith & Nephew, Arthrotek, miscellaneous support from Arthrex and is a consultant to Smith & Nephew and Arthrex.
- Lubowitz JH, Centeno J. Woolf S, et al. Is autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI) literature commercially biased? #249. Presented at the 2007 International Society of Arthroscopy, Knee Surgery and Orthopaedic Sports Medicine Congress. May 27-31, 2007. Florence, Italy.