Centre for Health Informatics, Australian Institute of Health Innovation, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Clin Pharmacol Ther. 2012 Apr;91(4):685-91. doi: 10.1038/clpt.2011.279. Epub 2012 Feb 29.
Although it is well established that funding source influences the publication of clinical trials, relatively little is known about how funding influences trial design. We examined a public trial registry to determine how funding source shapes trial design among trials involving antihyperlipidemics. We used an automated process to identify and analyze 809 trials from a set of 72,564. Three networks representing industry-, collaboratively, and non-industry-funded trials were constructed. Each network comprised 18 drugs as nodes connected according to the number of comparisons made between them. The results indicated that industry-funded trials were more likely to compare across drugs and examine dyslipidemia as a condition, and less likely to register safety outcomes. The source of funding for clinical trials had a measurable effect on trial design, which helps quantify differences in research agendas. Improved monitoring of current clinical trials may be used to more closely align research agendas to clinical needs.
尽管资金来源会影响临床试验的发表已得到充分证实，但对于资金如何影响试验设计的了解相对较少。我们研究了一个公共试验注册处，以确定资金来源如何影响涉及抗高血脂药物的试验的试验设计。我们使用自动化过程从一组 72564 项试验中识别和分析了 809 项试验。构建了代表行业、合作和非行业资助试验的三个网络。每个网络都包含 18 种药物作为节点，根据它们之间进行的比较数量连接。结果表明，行业资助的试验更有可能在药物之间进行比较，并将血脂异常作为一种疾病进行检查，而不太可能注册安全性结果。临床试验的资金来源对试验设计有可衡量的影响，这有助于量化研究议程的差异。改进对当前临床试验的监测可能被用来使研究议程更紧密地与临床需求保持一致。
