ArticlePloS one2018
Prevalence of clinical trial status discrepancies: A cross-sectional study of 10,492 trials registered on both ClinicalTrials.gov and the European Union Clinical Trials Register.
Article in PloS one, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
32 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A Decade in Review: A Systematic Review of Universal Influenza Vaccines in Clinical Trials during the 2010 Decade.Viruses · 2020Pooled it
- A systematic review of fMRI neurofeedback reporting and effects in clinical populations.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2020Pooled it
- Computerized monitoring of COVID-19 trials, studies and registries in ClinicalTrials.gov registry.PeerJ · 2020Trial
- Observational
- Research waste in total knee arthroplasty studies: an observational study on registered trials.BMJ open · 2026Observational
- Drug development in psoriatic arthritis: a trialtrove-based landscape analysis (1999-2025).Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Clinical trial registration in India: 12% of drug regulatory trials are not registered, as required by law.Health research policy and systems · 2025Article
- Improving research transparency with individualized report cards: A feasibility study in clinical trials at a large university medical center.BMC medical research methodology · 2025Article
- Incredible use of plant-derived bioactives as anticancer agents.RSC advances · 2025Review
- Three levels of discrepancies in the records of trial sites in India, registered with the European Union Clinical Trials Register.Frontiers in medicine · 2024Article
- Availability of results of clinical trials registered on EU Clinical Trials Register: cross sectional audit study.BMJ medicine · 2024Article
- Cholera vaccine clinical trials: A cross-sectional analysis of clinical trials registries.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2023Article
- The international clinical trials registry platform (ICTRP): data integrity and the trends in clinical trials, diseases, and drugs.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2023Article
- Assessment of clinical trial protocols for pathology content using the SPIRIT-Path guidelines highlights areas for improvement.The journal of pathology. Clinical research · 2022Article
- Inadequate reporting quality of registered genome editing trials: an observational study.BMC medical research methodology · 2022Observational
- Trends and variation in data quality and availability on the European Union Clinical Trials Register: A cross-sectional study.Clinical trials (London, England) · 2022Article
- The representation of Indigenous peoples in chronic disease clinical trials in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States.Clinical trials (London, England) · 2022Article
- Rare disease patients in India are rarely involved in international orphan drug trials.PLOS global public health · 2022Article
- Discrepancies between FDA documents and ClinicalTrials.gov for Orphan Drug-related clinical trial data.PLOS global public health · 2022Article
- An analysis of deficiencies in the ethics committee data of certain interventional trials registered with the Clinical Trials Registry-India.PLOS global public health · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTrial registries are a key source of information for clinicians and researchers. While building OpenTrials, an open database of public trial information, we identified errors and omissions in registries, including discrepancies between descriptions of the same trial in different registries. We set out to ascertain the prevalence of discrepancies in trial completion status using a cohort of trials registered on both the European Union Clinical Trials Register (EUCTR) and ClinicalTrials.gov. STUDY DESIGN AND
settingWe used matching titles and registry IDs provided by both registries to build a cohort of dual-registered trials. Completion statuses were compared; we calculated descriptive statistics on the prevalence of discrepancies.
results11,988 dual-registered trials were identified. 1,496 did not provide a comparable completion status, leaving 10,492 trials. 16.2% were discrepant on completion status. The majority of discrepancies (90.5%) were a 'completed' trial on ClinicalTrials.gov inaccurately marked as 'ongoing' on EUCTR. Overall, 33.9% of dual-registered trials described as 'ongoing' on EUCTR were listed as 'completed' on ClinicalTrials.gov.
conclusionCompletion status on registries is commonly inaccurate. Previous work on publication bias may underestimate non-reporting. We describe simple steps registry owners and trialists could take to improve accuracy.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.