THURSDAY, Dec. 29 (HealthDay News) -- Registration of trials in the ClinicalTrials.gov database improved in 2005 after some of the leading medical journals implemented a new policy that requires registration as a prerequisite to publication, according to a report in the Dec. 29 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Deborah A. Zarin, M.D., and colleagues from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., determined how complete ClinicalTrials.gov online database entries were before and after implementation of the editorial policy.
The authors found that from May 20 to Oct. 11, 2005, the number of trial entries rose from 13,153 to 22,714, an increase of 73%. The completeness of the registries also increased and were measured by the presence of unique "Intervention Name" and "Primary Outcome Measure" field data.
Recent concern over drug safety trials has increased the desire for complete, accurate and readily available study information, the authors state. "Overall, the data contained in records were more complete in October than they were in May, but there still is room for substantial improvement," the authors conclude.
Abstract
Full Text
Editorial
