Majority of clinical trial leaders want more sharing of data

Nearly nine in ten researchers who carry out clinical trials believe data should be more easily shared, a study has found.

A team at Yale University, publisher BioMed Central and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute surveyed the authors of clinical trials that were published in 2010 and 2011 in six journals.

Of the 315 authors who completed the survey, 88 per cent said they supported data sharing.

Three-quarters of respondents claimed that trial researchers should be required to share data through a repository, while 73 per cent suggested it should be provided upon request.

When asked about the length of time before data should be shared, one in three suggested between one and two years after trial completion; 31 per cent said within three years; and 33 per cent argued there should be no time limit.

Dr Fiona Godlee and Dr Trish Groves, editor and deputy editor of the British Medical Journal, said that the publication had decided to require study authors to make their data available on reasonable request from January 2013 because "it is no longer possible to pretend that a report of a clinical trial is sufficient to allow full independent scrutiny of the results".

They added that it is now down to journals and contributors to "ensure that we are as rigorous in overseeing and critiquing this new breed of reanalyses as we have tried to be of the originals".