The Australian Clinical Trial Registry

Van Der Weyden, Martin B; Ghersi, Davina

doi:10.5694/j.1326-5377.2005.tb06877.x

Topics

Not so long ago, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) — represented by 11 general medical journals including The Medical Journal of Australia — took a fairly passive and advisory role in medical publishing. The major outcome of its efforts was the Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals, which is an internationally accepted reference for biomedical publishing. It gives recommendations for preparing manuscripts for submission, and includes statements on editorial roles and responsibilities, authorship, and ethical issues governing biomedical publication.1

1 The Medical Journal of Australia, Sydney, NSW.
2 Systematic Reviews in Health Care Assessment, NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, Camperdown, NSW.

Correspondence: medjaust@ampco.com.au

1. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals: writing and editing for biomedical publications. Updated Oct 2004. Available at: http://www.icmje.org/index.html (accessed Jun 2005).
2. Davidoff F, De Angelis CD, Drazen JM, et al. Sponsorship, authorship and accountability. Revision of statement on publication ethics by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Med J Aust 2001; 175: 294-296.
3. De Angelis C, Drazen JM, Frizelle FA, et al. Clinical trial registration: a statement from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Med J Aust 2004; 181: 293-294.
4. Rennie D. Trial registration: a great idea switches from ignored to irresistible. JAMA 2004; 292: 1359-1362.
5. Meier B. Medical editors likely to call for registration of drug tests at outset. New York Times 2004; Sep 8: C1, C4.
6. International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations. Global industry position on disclosure of information about clinical trials. 6 Jan 2005. Available at: http://www.ifpma.org/News/NewsReleaseDetail.aspx?nID=2205 (accessed May 2005).
7. Simes RJ. Publication bias: the case for an international registry of clinical trials. J Clin Oncol 1986; 4: 1529-1541.
8. Dickersin K. Report from the panel on the case for registers of clinical trials at the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Society for Clinical Trials. Control Clin Trials 1988; 9: 76-81.
9. Report of the review of the role and functioning of institutional ethics committees. Australian Government, 1996. Available at: http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/publications/pdf/e34.pdf (accessed Jun 2005).
10. De Angelis CD, Drazen JM, Frizelle FA, et al. Is this clinical trial fully registered? A statement from The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Med J Aust 2005; 182: 609-610.
11. Gülmezoglu AM, Pang T, Horton R, Dickersin K. WHO facilitates international collaboration in setting standards for trial registration. Lancet 2005; 365; 1829-1831.
12. National Health and Medical Research Council. The Australian Clinical Trial Registry. Available at: http://www.ctc.usyd.edu.au/trials/registry/registry.htm (accessed Jun 2005).

Online responses are no longer available. Please refer to our instructions for authors page for more information.