STAT+: ‘Harmful and wasteful’: Many pediatric clinical trials end early or don’t report results
An extensive analysis of thousands of pediatric trials found one in 10 ended early — and among the studies that were completed, the vast majority of results still hadn’t been reported or published years later, raising concerns about incomplete knowledge about treatments for children.
Moreover, the problems existed regardless of the funding sources, although studies supported by the pharmaceutical industry were significantly more likely to be discontinued. And industry-sponsored trials also had lower odds of being published three years after completion, according to the analysis, which looked at 13,200 studies conducted from October 2007 to March 2020 and was published Tuesday in Pediatrics.
