Is This Clinical Trial Fully Registered? — A Statement from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors

In September 2004, the members of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) published a joint editorial aimed at promoting registration of all clinical trials.1 We stated that we will consider a trial for publication only if it has been registered before the enrollment of the first patient. This policy applies to trials that start recruiting on or after July 1, 2005. Because many ongoing trials were not registered at inception, we will consider for publication ongoing trials that are registered before September 13, 2005. Our goal then and now is to foster a comprehensive, publicly available database of . . .