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A large number of COVID-19 interventional clinical trials were registered soon after the pandemic onset: a descriptive analysis
Background
There is a pressing need for evidence-based interventions to address the devastating clinical and public health effects of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The number of registered trials related to COVID-19 is increasing by the day.
Objectives
To describe the characteristics of the currently registered clinical trials related to COVID-19.
Methods
We searched the World Health Organization (WHO)’s International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) on May 15, 2020. We included any entry that is related to COVID-19. We abstracted then descriptively analyzed the following characteristics of the registered trials: study design, status, phase, primary endpoints, experimental interventions, and geographic location among other qualifiers.
Results
We identified 1,308 eligible registered trials. The majority of trials were initially registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (n= 703; 53.7%) and the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR) (n= 291; 22.2%). The number of participants to be enrolled across these trials was 734,657, with a median of 110 participants per trial. The most-commonly studied intervention category was pharmacologic (n=763; 58.3%), with antiparasitic medications being the most common subcategory. While over half of trials were already recruiting, we identified published peer-reviewed results for only 8 of those trials.
Conclusion
There is a relatively large number of registered trials but very few results published so far. While our findings suggest an appropriate initial response by the research community, the real challenge will be to get these trials completed, published, and translated into practice and policy.
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