News roundup

WHO and science publishers team up on online register of trials

Geneva Fiona Fleck

The World Health Organization has teamed up with a group of biomedical publishing experts to register its trials on an online database. From this month all randomised controlled trials that have been approved by the WHO’s ethics review board will be registered on the database run by Current Controlled Trials, a London based company, under the company’s unique international standard randomised controlled trial number (ISRCTN).

The move is a major step towards universal access to information on clinical trials. Information about trials can be difficult to find because several trials may have the same title, one trial may be reported in different places, and some trials are never reported at all.

WHO said that registering its trials will help developing countries access research on diseases affecting poor people, such as HIV and AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, as well as factors such as high maternal mortality.

Current Controlled Trials, which is part of the Current Science Group of biomedical publishers, launched the registration system in May 2003. It is the first online service to assign unique numbers to randomised controlled trials in all areas of health care and from all over the world.

Since its launch it has registered numbers for more than 1800 trials. The online search service is free to anyone seeking information on clinical trials.

Now with the WHO registering its trials on the service, the number of clinical trials registered should increase, WHO said. "Although trial registration is an important step on its own, it should not be seen as an end in itself," said Dr Timothy Evans, WHO’s assistant director general for evidence and information for policy.

"Only when these registers are efficiently used can they serve the purpose they are set up for," Dr Evans said. He added: "As an international agency with a mandate to set standards and norms, WHO will take steps to encourage its member states to support the publication of research conducted within their countries and encourage the use of such registers."

The register and search facility can be accessed from the Current Controlled Trials website: www.controlled-trials.com