Frustrated University of Florida in Gainesville researchers sought to determine how many studies published in major medical journals concerning randomized clinical trials for oncology (cancer treatment) provided enough information in the published study to be used by oncologists in clinical practice.
They identified a number of essential elements in reporting therapy-based oncology trials, including: Drug name, dose, route, cycle length, maximum number of cycles, premedication, patient monitoring parameters and dosing adjustments for hematologic and organ-specific toxicity, among others.
They then sought this information in 262 journal articles from 2005-2008 that had appeared in one of the following five leading medical journals: 165 from the Journal of Clinical Oncology, 31 from The New England Journal of Medicine, 27 from Cancer (the journal of the American Cancer Society), 20 from the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, and 19 from Blood (the journal of the American Society of Hematology).
FINDINGS
"Only 30 articles (11%) met the main objective of complete data reporting (i.e., all 10 essential elements). This was highest in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (5/20; 25%), followed by Cancer (5/27; 18%), Journal of Clinical Oncology (18/165; 11%), Blood (1/19; 5%), and The New England Journal of Medicine (1/31; 3%)."
CONCLUSIONS
The authors concluded that "Randomized clinical trials published in major oncology journals do not consistently report essential therapeutic details necessary for translation of the trial findings to clinical practice. Potential solutions to improve reporting include modification of submission guidelines, use of online appendices, and providing open access to trial protocols."
CANCER TYPE(S)
All
TREATMENT TYPE
All
WHERE WAS THIS RESEARCH PUBLISHED?
The Journal of the National Cancer Institute
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
None reported
By Ross Bonander
Citation
Duff, JM et al. "Adequacy of Published Oncology Randomized Controlled Trials to Provide Therapeutic Details Needed for Clinical Application." Journal of the National Cancer Institute 2010 102(10):702-705; doi:10.1093/jnci/djq117.
