BMJ  2004;329:1043-1044 (30 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7473.1043-b

Letter

Compulsory registration of clinical trials

Publicly funded national register of trials would be best in the United Kingdom

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—We support the statement of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors on trial registration discussed by Abbasi,^{1 2} but we reiterate that currently no register satisfies all requirements.

The UK National Register of Cancer Clinical Trials meets the criteria in that it is freely available, managed by a not for profit organisation, and stores all required data items. It is, however, restricted to UK randomised cancer trials. Setting national and disease boundaries has enabled an in-depth approach whereby we are confident that we have captured most publicly funded trials. Passively providing a database for registration does not work. Trials need to be actively sought and managed. A high proportion of our registrations are effected by our register manager seeking permissions and abstracting information from protocols; thereafter, we actively seek updated accrual and publication information. To move beyond this, while maintaining comprehensiveness, undoubtedly requires an element of compulsion.

The . . . [Full text of this article]

Lesley.Stewart@ctu.mrc.ac.uk, MRC Clinical Trials Unit, London NW1 2DA

MRC Clinical Trials Unit, London NW1 2DA

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