Results
We identified 284 unique authors from the 10 CPGs published by the
Japanese Society of Neurology between 2016 and 2020. Among these
authors, 34 (12.0%) contributed to the development of two different
CPGs, 241 (84.9%) were male physicians, and 73 (25.7%) held full
professorships at their affiliated universities. Of these authors, 236
(83.1%) received one or more personal payments from pharmaceutical
companies between 2016 and 2020 (Table 1). The total amount of payments
to 273 authors was $13.9 million, encompassing 14,596 transactions over
the five years. The mean and median personal payments per author were
$49,274 (SD: $81,146) and $15,255 (IQR: $1,138–$58,737),
respectively. Over the five years, 28.2%, 16.2%, and 4.6% of authors
received more than $50,000, $100,000, and $250,000, respectively. All
10 CPG chairpersons and 9 vice chairpersons received personal payments,
with a mean of $118,450 (standard deviation: $153,378). The mean
payment amounts were significantly higher for CPG chairs and vice
chairpersons than for other authors ($118,450 vs. $44,593,
p<0.001 in the Mann-Whitney U test).
Table 2 describes the payments by guideline. Of the 10 CPGs, all had
more than 50% of their authors receiving personal payments, with
percentages ranging from 72.6% to 100%. All authors of the
spinocerebellar degeneration and multiple system atrophy CPG received
payments from the companies. The mean personal payments were highest for
the Parkinson’s disease CPG ($160,441), followed by epilepsy
($78,110), dementia ($72,431), and spinocerebellar degeneration and
multiple system atrophy ($44,989).