Abstract
Purpose: :
To evaluate the rate of publication of registered clinical trials concerning age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
Methods: :
The National Institutes of Health’s ClinicalTrials.gov registry was searched to identify all trials concerning AMD. Trials that were actively recruiting, not interventional, terminated, or did not actually concern AMD were excluded. Only trials that had been completed two or more years before this analysis was started were included, to allow for adequate time to pass before publication was expected to occur. PubMed.gov was then searched to evaluate the publication status of each study.
Results: :
385 studies were initially identified, of which 64 (16%) were included in the final evaluation. 321 studies were not included for the following reasons: 171 did not involve AMD or were not interventional; 141 were not completed by January 1, 2007; 9 trials were terminated. Of the 64 trials that were included, 35 (54%) were published. Industry sponsored trials were published at a slightly lower rate (52.5%) than were non-industry sponsored trials (58.3%).
Conclusions: :
Utilizing broad study parameters, fifty four percent of registered trials in AMD have been reported in the peer reviewed-literature. This finding raises concerns about the completeness of data available concerning present and future AMD therapies.
Keywords: age-related macular degeneration • clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: treatment/prevention assessment/controlled clinical trials • clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: outcomes/complications