Comparison of Registered and Published Primary Outcomes in Randomized Controlled Trials.

The article discusses a study which compared the registered and published primary outcome of randomized controlled trials (RCT). Study authors reviewed MEDLINE via PubMed to search for RCT reports in cardiology, rheumatology and gastroenterology that were indexed in 2008 in 10 general medical and specialty journals. They found that 45.5 percent of the trials were adequately registered, while 27.6 percent published reports lack trial registration. They also noted that 31 percent of trials with adequate registration showed some discrepancies between the outcomes registered and outcomes published. Study authors concluded that selective outcome reporting is prevalent in RCT.