Table 2. Characteristics of and presentation material in advertisements promoting pharmaceuticals by year.
| Content | Year | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 |
| Advertisements | Total number | 535 | 560 | 641 | 468 | 432 |
| Mean number of pages per advertisement | 2.8 | 3 | 2.9 | 3.3 | 3.3 | |
| (SD) | (1.4) | (1.5) | (1.8) | (1.7) | (1.6) | |
| Minimum and maximum numbers of pages | 1–9 | 1–10 | 0.5–11 | 0.25–11.0 | 0.25–7.0 | |
| Brief package insert information*, n (%) | 475 (88.8) | 508 (90.7) | 529 (82.5) | 416 (88.9) | 385 (89.1) | |
| Descriptiveexplanation | Efficacy, n (%) | 418 (78.1) | 468 (83.6) | 415 (64.7) | 332 (70.9) | 323 (74.8) |
| Safety, n (%) | 471 (88.0) | 511 (91.3) | 551 (86.0) | 400 (85.5) | 379 (87.7) | |
| Data in clinical trials orpost-marketing survey | Efficacy and/or safety data, n (%) | 64 (12.0) | 102 (18.2) | 353 (55.1) | 321 (68.6) | 318 (73.6) |
| Kaplan–Meier curve, n (%) | 66 (12.3) | 95 (17.0) | 113 (17.6) | 157 (33.6) | 132 (30.6) | |
| Differences from other agents (including placebo), n (%) | 240 (44.9) | 268 (47.9) | 249 (38.9) | 241 (51.5) | 223 (51.6) | |
| Backgroundpictures | Real patient photograph, n (%) | 46 (8.6) | 25 (4.5) | 11 (1.7) | 7 (1.5) | 13 (3.0) |
| Patient images, n (%) | 206 (38.5) | 219 (39.1) | 258 (40.3) | 133 (28.4) | 109 (25.2) | |
| Physician images, n (%) | 1 (0.2) | 6 (1.1) | 30 (4.7) | 20 (4.3) | 36 (8.3) | |
| Biological images, n (%) | 171 (32.0) | 174 (31.1) | 90 (14.0) | 24 (5.1) | 22 (5.1) | |
| Product photographs, n (%) | 116 (21.7) | 95 (17.0) | 38 (5.9) | 36 (7.7) | 66 (15.3) | |
| Animal photographs, n (%) | 65 (12.2) | 37 (6.6) | 32 (5.0) | 23 (4.9) | 28 (6.5) | |
| Illustrations representing efficacy, n (%) | 54 (10.1) | 34 (6.1) | 117 (18.3) | 106 (22.7) | 156 (36.1) |
*
Brief summary is extracted from approved package insert.