ideasIdea

Deposit trial results as structured data, not just PDFs

Trial results (hazard ratios, confidence intervals, subgroups, toxicities) would be deposited in a computer-readable form so they can be pooled, checked and used by software immediately.

ClinicalTrials.gov results reporting is structured but coarse; journal articles are unstructured; Kaplan-Meier curves are images. The proposal requires deposition of a structured results package (primary and secondary endpoints with estimates and intervals, digitised survival curves or individual patient time-to-event data, subgroup tables, adverse events by grade in CTCAE codes) in a standard schema at publication, enabling automated meta-analysis and living guidelines.

Hypothesis

Structured results deposition will make automated living meta-analysis possible for more than 80 percent of new phase 3 oncology trials and will reduce transcription errors in systematic reviews.

Rationale

Extraction from PDFs is the main cost and error source in evidence synthesis; every downstream use (living reviews, guidelines, knowledge graphs, decision support) is faster if results are born structured.

What would test it

Define the schema; require it for one year in two journals; measure the share of trials complying and the time to update a living review using the structured data versus PDF extraction.

Maturity

early clinical

Who has to act

policy

Cost to try

Small (under $1M)

Years to first evidence

Bottlenecks it attacks

Knowledge reaches practice too slowly · Knowledge diffusion is slow: it takes years for a proven result to change what most patients receive, and no one can keep up with the literature.
Failures are hidden · Negative trials, failed drugs and abandoned programmes are rarely published, so the same mistakes are repeated.

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Deposit trial results as structured data, not just PDFs

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