Searching for trials

Cochrane training. Searching clinical trials registers: guide for systematic reviewers. Cochrane: 2022.

Hunter KE, Webster AC, Page MJ, Willson M, McDonald S, Berber S et al. Searching clinical trials registers: guide for systematic reviewers. BMJ (Clinical research ed.) 2022; 377:e068791.

Duplicate trials can be difficult to identify in ICTRP.  Valkenhoef G, Loane RF, Zarin DA. Previously unidentified duplicate registrations of clinical trials: an exploratory analysis of registry data worldwide.  Syst Rev. 2016;5(1):116.

Clinical trial data and articles linked for the first time.  An initiative led by BioMed Central and CrossRef has made it possible to link all published articles related to a clinical trial through the CrossMark dialogue box. Other similar activities include OpenTrials' plan to build "a collaborative and open linked database for all available structured data and documents on all clinical trials".

Wolfe N, Gøtzsche PC, Bero L. Strategies for obtaining unpublished drug trial data: a qualitative interview study. Syst Rev. 2013;2:31. doi: 10.1186/2046-4053-2-31.

Ogino D, Takahashi K, Sato H. Characteristics of clinical trial websites: information distribution between ClinicalTrials.gov and 13 primary registries in the WHO registry network. Trials. 2014;15:428.

Medline citations may carry databank names in the DataBankName element in the XML version of the citation and the Secondary Source ID [SI] element in the PubMed MEDLINE display.

Glanville JM, Duffy S, McCool R, Varley D. Searching ClinicalTrials.gov and the International Clinical Trials Registry Platform to inform systematic reviews: what are the optimal search approaches? J Med Libr Assoc. 2014;102(3):177-83.

Editorial on the Linked Reports of Clinical Trials project.

          Altman DG, Furverg C D, Grimshaw J M, Shanahan D R. Linked publications from a single trial: a thread of evidence 2014;1:369.     

Fifty-five percent (166/302) of the reports of RCTs found in MEDLINE and 60% (186/312) of the published reports of RCTs from the Netherlands Trials Register cohort contained a Trials Register Number.

van de Wetering FT, Scholten RJPM, Haring T, Clarke M, Hooft L (2012) Trial Registration Numbers Are Underreported in Biomedical Publications. PLoS ONE 7(11): e49599. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0049599

Cochrane Review Group to conduct Google Scholar review

The Cochrane Methodology Review Group is registering a title for a Cochrane Methodology Review looking at the evidence on the use of Google Scholar to search for trials.