Clinical Research Findings Often 'Biased Or Incomplete'

June 1, 2004

Clinical research cannot be taken at face value because findings are often made public in a biased or incomplete way, a new report says.
 
University of Oxford academics found that some clinical trial findings were simply not reported.
Other trials changed tack once the results had begun to emerge.
 
The Oxford researchers analysed the published results of over 100 clinical trials.
They found that almost two thirds of results relating to potentially harmful trial outcomes were not fully reported.
 
And half of results relating to the effectiveness of the treatment on trial were not fully made public.
 
The research found that many studies changed tack after they had got under way, failing to stick to the original aims set out in the research protocol.
In 62% of cases at least one primary outcome had been changed, introduced, or omitted after the trial got under way.
 
Researcher Dr Douglas Altman, a professor of statistics in medicine at the Institute of Health Studies, Oxford, said: “The problem is really in things which are not being reported. It is not a criticism of things in the publications. There is a tendency to withhold the less interesting stuff.”
 
“It is part of the same picture. There is a tendency, to use modern jargon, of putting a positive spin on it.”
 
Eighty-six percent of the clinical trial teams contacted about the findings denied the existence of unreported outcomes, despite clear evidence to the contrary.
 
The study did not show the reasons why scientists changed research focus – or why certain findings were not made public.
 
Dr Altman said; “What we found was that in an appreciable number of cases there were discrepancies between what they said they would do and what they had actually done. Whether there is anything sinister in that is very hard to tell.”
 
The Oxford research found no evidence that commercially sponsored trials were reported more or less accurately than their independently-funded counterparts.
 
Dr Altman said his team’s findings, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, should not undermine the veracity of clinical trials.
 
“It is a bit worrying but I personally wouldn’t at all want people to start distrusting medical research on the basis of our study,” he said.
The research team is calling for proposed new trials to be registered, with their aims and methodology made public.
Dr Altman and Dr An-Wen Chan, Oxford University clinical researcher, teamed up with researchers from the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Denmark for their project.
 
Source: Scotsman, 01/06/2004

Back to News