Automatically detect when a trial changes its outcomes after the fact
Trials sometimes quietly swap the outcome they promised to measure for one that looks better. Software can compare the registered plan with the published paper and flag the switch.
The COMPare project manually compared registered and published outcomes in five top journals and found widespread undisclosed switching. Registry entries and publications are now structured enough for automated comparison, and pre-specified statistical analysis plans are increasingly public. A continuously running monitor that flags outcome discrepancies in oncology trials, notifies journals and posts findings publicly would deter switching.
- Failures are hidden · Negative trials, failed drugs and abandoned programmes are rarely published, so the same mistakes are repeated.
- Trial design, endpoints and cost · A phase 3 trial takes years and hundreds of millions of dollars, and often answers a question that has already moved on.
Pages like this
not linked directly; found by shared links- IdeaStop failing trials earlier with pre-registered aggressive futility rules
Shares ClinicalTrials.gov, Failures are hidden, Trial design, endpoints and cost.
- IdeaAn annual map of high-burden questions that nobody is funding
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- IdeaPublish the disagreement between trial doctors and independent reviewers for every trial
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- IdeaNo new trial approval until the sponsor has reported its old ones
Shares ClinicalTrials.gov, Failures are hidden.
- IdeaBayesian shrinkage for subgroup claims to stop false 'works in this group' stories
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- IdeaPublish why patients were screened out of each trial
Shares ClinicalTrials.gov, Trial design, endpoints and cost.
- IdeaA public transparency score for every trial sponsor, used by sites and patients
Shares ClinicalTrials.gov, Failures are hidden.
- IdeaRequire a randomised phase 2 before any phase 3
Shares Failures are hidden, Trial design, endpoints and cost.