"Doubts Cast On Credibility Of Some Published Clinical Trials"

Source: ScienceDaily (July 3, 2009)

Research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Trials studied randomized clinical trials (RCT) in some Chinese medical journals during 1994 to 2005. The study concluded that the design of a remarkable 93 percent of 2235 so-called RCTs published in that period had flawed study designs.

Less than seven percent of self-described RCTs published in some Chinese medical journals meet criteria for authentic randomisation. The researchers looked at both conventional and traditional Chinese medicine trials, but there was no difference between these in terms of study authenticity rates. However, all RCTs of pre-market drug clinical trial were authentic, and RCTs conducted at hospitals affiliated with medical universities were more likely to be authentic than trials conducted at lower tier level three and level two hospitals. More than half of the trials at university-affiliated hospitals met RCT criteria, which means lower-tier hospital research is the least rigorous in design terms.

Comments:

• Good research design is not easy,
• Serious professional review of methods is important if one seeks really credible results.
• Poor methodology means results are untrustworthy, not that they are wrong.
• I tend to assume that university hospitals tend to be the top not only in technical breadth and ability in the delivery of health services, but also in the quality of research.
• It may well be that pre-market clinical trials and clinical trials done in teaching hospitals inform decisions that affect more people or potentially affect them more gravely.

Still, this is a very scary result. JAD