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Interventional cardiology and the medical devices industry: is there a conflict of interest?

Correspondence to:
Martyn Thomas, King’s College Hospital, Denmark Hill, London SE5 9RS, UK; mttwins@aol.com

Accepted
1 May 2007

Abbreviations: DES, drug-eluting stents

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

There is a clear potential for a conflict of interest in the interaction between the medical devices industry and interventional cardiologists. To be an interventional cardiologist and not acknowledge this is naïve and potentially damaging to the specialty. A conflict of interest may be defined as: a set of conditions where a primary interest (such as a patient’s welfare or the validity of a piece of research) tends to be unduly influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain). The conflict is not always, however, about financial gain. Influence over an individual can also be secondary to an enhancement of reputation; either of that individual or of his/her department. The combination of enhanced reputation and financial gain can, of course, be self-perpetuating.

An example of such a potential conflict can be highlighted by the following example. An interventional company may approach an individual or department asking them to take . . . [Full text of this article]