Registration of Clinical Trials Still Moving Ahead – September 2008 Update to Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals

The International Committee of Medical Journals' (ICMJE) policy on mandatory registration of clinical trials had made an important contribution to the transparency of clinical research even before it became a prerequisite for manuscript submission (1-3). Until recently, the scientific publication was the most detailed public record of the clinical trial, but reports in journals had been often burdened by selective reporting of trials and trial results, which very often distorted the evidence available for clinical decision-making (1).