SynthesisJournal of translational medicine2020
Systematic review of the registered clinical trials for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Synthesis in Journal of translational medicine, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 42 papers, 5 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
42 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Lack of diversity in antifibrotic trials for pulmonary fibrosis: a systematic review.European respiratory review : an official journal of the European Respiratory Society · 2025Pooled it
- Randomized controlled trials in patients with COVID-19: a systematic review and critical appraisal.International journal of infectious diseases : IJID : official publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases · 2022Pooled it
- Clinical trials in COVID-19 management & prevention: A meta-epidemiological study examining methodological quality.Journal of clinical epidemiology · 2021Pooled it
- SARS-CoV-2-neutralising monoclonal antibodies for treatment of COVID-19.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2021Pooled it
- Evaluating the methodology of studies conducted during the global COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials.Journal of integrative medicine · 2021Pooled it
- Diversity and inclusivity in clinical trial populations for maintenance inhaler therapy in people with COPD: a systematic review.ERJ open research · 2026Article
- Evaluation of Global Post-Outbreak COVID-19 Treatment Interventions: A Systematic Review and Bibliometric Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2023Review
- Molecular Mechanisms Related to Responses to Oxidative Stress and Antioxidative Therapies in COVID-19: A Systematic Review.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Article
- Antiviral Activity of Medicinal Plants against Human Coronavirus: a systematic scoping review of and experimentations.Journal of traditional Chinese medicine = Chung i tsa chih ying wen pan · 2022Article
- Computational identification of host genomic biomarkers highlighting their functions, pathways and regulators that influence SARS-CoV-2 infections and drug repurposing.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Medicinal Plants with Potential Inhibitory Bioactive Compounds against Coronaviruses.Advanced pharmaceutical bulletin · 2022Review
- Panoramic quality assessment tool for investigator initiated trials.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- Article
- Article
- Pharmacoinformatics and molecular dynamics simulation studies reveal potential covalent and FDA-approved inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 main protease 3CLJournal of biomolecular structure & dynamics · 2021Article
- Development and Validation of a Method for Quantification of Favipiravir as COVID-19 Management in Spiked Human Plasma.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- EMR2vec: Bridging the gap between patient data and clinical trial.Computers & industrial engineering · 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
- The time is now: role of pragmatic clinical trials in guiding response to global pandemics.Trials · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSince the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), many researchers in China have performed related clinical research. However, systematic reviews of the registered clinical trials are still lacking. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review of clinical trials for COVID-19 to summarize their characteristics.
methodsThis study is based on the PRISMA recommendations in the Cochrane handbook. The Chinese Clinical Registration Center and the ClinicalTrials.gov databases were searched to identify registered clinical trials related to COVID-19. The retrieval inception date was February 9, 2020. Two researchers independently selected the literature based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, extracted data, and evaluated the risk of bias.
resultsA total of 75 registered clinical trials (63 interventional studies and 12 observational studies) for COVID-19 were identified. The majority of clinical trials were sponsored by Chinese hospitals. Only 11 trials have begun to recruit patients, and none of the registered clinical trials have been completed; 34 trials were early clinical exploratory trials or in the pre-experiment stage, 13 trials were phase III, and four trials were phase IV. The intervention methods included traditional Chinese medicine in 26 trials, Western medicine in 30 trials, and integrated traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine in 19 trials. The subjects were primarily non-critical adult patients (≥ 18 years old). The median sample size of the trials was 100 (IQR: 60-200), and the median length of the trial periods was 179 d (IQR: 94-366 d). The main outcomes were clinical observation and examinations. Overall, the methodological quality of both the interventional trials and observational studies was low.
conclusionsIntensive clinical trials on the treatment of COVID-19 using traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine are ongoing or will be performed in China. However, based on the uncertain methodological quality, small sample size, and long trial duration, we will not be able to obtain reliable, high-quality clinical evidence regarding the treatment of COVID-19 in the near future. Improving the quality of study design, prioritizing promising drugs, and using different designs and statistical methods are worth advocating and recommending for clinical trials of COVID-19 in the future.
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.