Public access to protocols of contemporary cancer randomized clinical trials

Access to randomized clinical trial (RCT) protocols is necessary for the interpretation and reproducibility of the study results, but protocol availability has been lacking. We determined the prevalence of protocol availability for all published cancer RCTs in January 2020. We found that only 36.1%...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Babu, Christopher, Mell, Loren, Lee, Nancy, Zakeri, Kaveh
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Letter
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8237482/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34176506
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13063-021-05382-7
Descripción
Sumario:Access to randomized clinical trial (RCT) protocols is necessary for the interpretation and reproducibility of the study results, but protocol availability has been lacking. We determined the prevalence of protocol availability for all published cancer RCTs in January 2020. We found that only 36.1% (48/133) of RCTs had an accessible protocol and only 11.3% of RCTs (15/133) had a publicly accessible protocol that was not behind a paywall. Only 18.0% (24/133) of RCTs were published in conjunction with the protocol on the journal website. In conclusion, few cancer RCTs have an accessible research protocol. Journals should require publication of RCT protocols along with manuscripts to improve research transparency. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13063-021-05382-7.

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