Policies on reporting clinical trials and publishing supplements

Clinical research and practice in neurology are rapidly changing with the development and introduction of new therapies. Within the past 3 years, specific treatments have been introduced for disorders that were previously considered untreatable, including ischemic stroke, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer's disease. In addition, a flood of new therapeutic agents, some representing novel pharmacologic classes, are being introduced for the treatment of epilepsy and Parkinson's disease. After years of slow discovery of therapeutic agents, this veritable deluge of therapeutic options may be overwhelming for clinicians. Moreover, there is a vast array of other interventions currently in development that will complement the compounds that are already marketed. Neurology has always sought to publish information on new treatments; however, we intend to take additional steps to make experimental therapeutics a major focus of the journal. The development and reporting of new treatments will have a critical impact on the lives of our patients, the practice of neurology, and the planning of future basic and clinical research. To make Neurology as useful as possible to authors and clinicians, we will expedite publication of important clinical trials (see preceding editorial) and publish well-designed and conducted clinical trials regardless of the outcome of the study. Journals have sometimes had a bias toward publishing positive (regarding therapeutic benefit) studies while relegating negative studies to appear as abstracts or to less available venues. Positive studies with methodologic deficiencies have been prominently published, while negative studies with more methodologic rigor have not. We will focus on publishing more rigorously designed studies, specifically those using a control group, randomization, and a method of blinding, instead of publishing studies with weaker designs. Uncontrolled, nonrandomized, unblinded studies will be considered for publicationas Brief Communications or Clinical/Scientific Notes but will rarely be appropriate for publication as full-length articles. Such …