METHODS
This study included all PHO certificated by JSPHO in Japan as of
November 15, 2021. JSPHO is the primary and largest professional society
in the field of pediatric oncology in Japan. We extracted the name and
affiliation of all PHO from the official JSPHO webpage
(https://www.jspho.org/activity/certification_application.html).
Then, we collected payment data concerning lecturing, writing, and
consulting from a total of 92 pharmaceutical companies belonging to the
Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association and other associated
companies between 2016 and 2019, as we described
previously.6-8 After data collection, descriptive
analysis of payment data was conducted overall, including average and
median monetary values per physician and proportion of physicians
receiving payments. Also, Gini index was used to assess the inequality
of payment distribution.6
All statistical analyses were performed using Microsoft Excel, version
16.0 (Microsoft Corp), and Stata version 15 (Stata Corporation). This
study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Medical Governance
Research Institute before the study begun.