DOI: 10.1097/01.COT.0000292693.61928.e3

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Issn Print: 0276-2234

Publication Date: 2002/07/01


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Study: Systematic Reviews Largely Overlooked By Clinical rial Researchers

Rabiya S. Tuma

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Excerpt

The original CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) guidelines—developed to improve the quality of reporting of randomized clinical trials—say that clinical trial results should be discussed within the context of the “totality of relevant evidence.” A new study by researchers at the Cochrane Centre, however, found that few if any authors include references to such systematic reviews, and even those who do, fail to discuss their new results in the context of that information.
In the study, which was presented at the Fourth International Congress on Peer Review and Scientific Publication, Phil Alderson, MB, ChB, Mike Clarke, PhD, and Iain Chalmers, DSc, of the Cochrane Centre surveyed 33 reports published in May 2001 in five major medical journals—Annals of Internal Medicine, BMJ, Journal of the American Medical Association, Lancet, and the New England Journal of Medicine.
Of those 33 reports, only three referenced relevant systematic reviews; 20 others included information about related trials but did not integrate the new trial data with the prior ones. Four reports “claimed” to be the first published trial on the subject; the final six did not give any reference to other trials, but neither did they state that they were the first such trial.
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