ArticleJournal of clinical epidemiology2020
A large number of COVID-19 interventional clinical trials were registered soon after the pandemic onset: a descriptive analysis.
Article in Journal of clinical epidemiology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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
19 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Use of Chest Imaging in the Diagnosis and Management of COVID-19: A WHO Rapid Advice Guide.Radiology · 2021Guideline
- Looking beyond the origin of SARS-CoV-2: Significant strategic aspects during the five-year journey of COVID-19 vaccine development.Molecular therapy. Nucleic acids · 2025Review
- Article
- COVID-19 research in South Asia: a bibliometric analysis of the 100 most-cited articles.GMS hygiene and infection control · 2023Review
- COVID-19 site readiness initiative: Building clinical trial capacity for vaccine efficacy trials in Latin America in response to the pandemic.Vaccine: X · 2022Article
- The methodology of a "living" COVID-19 registry development in a clinical context.Journal of clinical epidemiology · 2022Article
- Implementation of platform trials in the COVID-19 pandemic: A rapid review.Contemporary clinical trials · 2022Review
- Characteristics of systematic reviews evaluating treatments for COVID-19 registered in PROSPERO.Epidemiology and infection · 2021Article
- A bibliometric analysis of COVID-19 research in Africa.BMJ global health · 2021Article
- How the clinical research community responded to the COVID-19 pandemic: an analysis of the COVID-19 clinical studies in ClinicalTrials.gov.JAMIA open · 2021Article
- Access to data from clinical trials in the COVID-19 crisis: open, flexible, and time-sensitive.Journal of clinical epidemiology · 2021Article
- Article
- Tailored PRISMA 2020 flow diagrams for living systematic reviews: a methodological survey and a proposal.F1000Research · 2021Article
- How the clinical research community responded to the COVID-19 pandemic: An analysis of the COVID-19 clinical studies in ClinicalTrials.gov.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2020Article
- Profiles of COVID-19 clinical trials in the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry.Emerging microbes & infections · 2020Review
- Treatment of Coronavirus Disease 2019 Patients with Convalescent Plasma Reveals a Signal of Significantly Decreased Mortality.The American journal of pathology · 2020Article
- Characteristics of academic publications, preprints, and registered clinical trials on the COVID-19 pandemic.PloS one · 2020Article
- COVID-19 Clinical Trials Registered Worldwide for Drug Intervention: An Overview and Characteristic Analysis.Drug design, development and therapy · 2020Review
- The worldwide clinical trial research response to the COVID-19 pandemic - the first 100 days.F1000ResearchArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
objectiveThere is a pressing need for evidence-based interventions to address the devastating clinical and public health effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The number of registered trials related to COVID-19 is increasing by the day. The objective of this study was to describe the characteristics of the currently registered interventional clinical trials related to COVID-19.
methodsWe searched the World Health Organization's International Clinical Trials Registry Platform on May 15th, 2020. We included any entry that is related to COVID-19. We abstracted and then descriptively analyzed the following characteristics of the registered trials: study design, status, phase, primary endpoints, experimental interventions, and geographic location among other qualifiers.
resultsWe identified 1,308 eligible registered trials. Most trials were registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (n = 703; 53.7%) and the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (n = 291; 22.2%). The number of participants to be enrolled across these trials was 734,657, with a median of 110 participants per trial. The most commonly studied intervention category was pharmacologic (n = 763; 58.3%), with antiparasitic medications being the most common subcategory. Although over half of the trials were already recruiting, we identified published peer-reviewed results for only 8 of those trials.
conclusionThere is a relatively large number of registered trials but with very few results published so far. Although our findings suggest an appropriate initial response by the research community, the real challenge will be to get these trials completed, published, and translated into practice and policy.
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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.