“Unregistered and unreported clinical trial results can bias the evidence used by healthcare professionals when creating new medical guidelines," -Mohsen AlaycheRegistering clinical trials helps increase research transparency and reduce redundancy. Most Canadian clinical trials are not meeting World Health Organization guidelines on registration and reporting of results, according to an analysis published in FACETS.
The analysis led by researchers at The Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa Heart Institute looked at all Canadian trials completed between 2009 and 2019 on ClinicalTrials.gov, a publicly accessible trial registry. Of the 6,700 trials identified, only 59% were registered before they began to ensure they followed a pre-planned design, and 32% had neither their results reported in ClinicalTrials.gov nor published.
To solve this problem, the researchers recommend all clinical trials be registered on ClinicalTrials.gov before the study starts, and their results reported on that platform. In addition, all clinical trial results must be published. The easiest way to do this is through a pre-print server, which usually has no fees and can be read by patients.
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research supports the use of preprints, and most journals allow preprints before publication submission. Learn more from publication resources prepared by the Ottawa Hospital’s Center for Journalology, part of the Ottawa Methods Centre. See the University of Ottawa Heart Institute’s press release and coverage by CTV News.
“Unregistered and unreported clinical trial results can bias the evidence used by healthcare professionals when creating new medical guidelines," says first author Mohsen Alayche, medical student at the University of Ottawa and research assistant at The Ottawa Hospital.
Authors: Mohsen Alayche, Kelly D. Cobey, Jeremy Y. Ng, Clare L. Ardern, Karim M. Khan, An-Wen Chan, Ryan Chow, Mouayad Masalkhi, Ana Patricia Ayala, Sanam Ebrahimzadeh, Jason Ghossein, Ibrahim Alayche, Jessie V. Willis, David Moher
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