UK publicly funded Clinical Trials Units supported a controlled access approach to share individual participant data but highlighted concerns

Efficacy of restitutive interventions for oculomotor deficits in adults with mild traumatic brain injury: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) can cause persistent symptoms suggestive of oculomotor deficits. This research synthesized evidence on restitutive interventions for reducing oculomotor deficits in adults with mTBI to understand if these interventions have clinical utility for improving recovery.

METHODS

Medline, EMBASE, CINHAL, PsychInfo, and Scopus, databases were searched for experimental studies published in English. We rated risk of bias (RoB) using recommended tools, and the certainty of the evidence according to GRADE guidelines. We conducted meta-analyses for similar outcomes reported in at least two studies.

RESULTS

Out of 5,328 citations, 12 studies (seven case series and five crossover design), with a combined sample size of 354 participants; (43% males) met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed. The analysis revealed a trend toward improvement of oculomotor deficits and visual tasks in response to restitutive intervention. None of the studies addressed sex or gender effects. All studies had high RoB, suggesting low certainty in the reported results.

DISCUSSION

Restitutive interventions may be beneficial for adults with oculomotor deficits after mTBI, however overall certainty of the evidence remains low. Future efforts must include enhancing attention to study methodology and reporting, sex and gender analyses, and reaching a consensus on outcome measures.

PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER

CRD42022352276.

Barriers and best practices to improving clinical trials transparency at UK public research institutions: A qualitative interview study

OBJECTIVES

Since 2017, the UK government has made concerted efforts to ensure the dissemination of clinical trials conducted at public research institutions. This study aims to understand how stakeholders within these institutions responded to these pressures and modified internal policies and processes while identifying best practices and barriers to improved transparency practice.

METHODS

Research governance and trial management staff from UK public research institutions (i.e., Universities and NHS Trusts) in England, Scotland and Wales participated in semi-structured interviews. Interviews were analysed using thematic analysis, aided by the framework method.

RESULTS

Between November 2020 and July 2021, 14 individual participants were recruited from 11 different institutions. They worked in research governance, administration, and management. Almost universally, new policies and procedures have been established to ensure investigators are aware of, and supported in, fulfilling their transparency commitments, however challenges remain. Trials of medicinal products, as the most closely regulated research, consequently received the most attention. National professional networks aid in sharing knowledge and best practice within this community.

CONCLUSIONS

Investment in the institutional governance of transparency is essential to achieving optimal transparency practices. Universities and hospitals share responsibility for ensuring research is performed and reported to regulatory standards. Facing political pressure, public research institutions in the UK have made efforts to improve their transparency practice which can provide key insights for similar efforts elsewhere.

Data resource profile: the virtual international care homes trials archive (VICHTA)

Introduction

Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) conducted in care home settings address a range of health conditions impacting older people, but often include a common core of data about residents and the care home environment. These data can be used to inform service provision, but accessing these data can be challenging.

Methods

The Virtual International Care Home Trials Archive (VICHTA) collates care home RCTs conducted since 2010, with >100 participants, across multiple conditions, with documented eligibility criteria, initially identified from a scoping review. A Steering Committee comprising contributing trialists oversees proposed uses of fully anonymised data. We characterised available demography and outcomes to inform potential analyses. Data are accessible via application to the Virtual Trials Archives, through a secure online analysis platform. Trial recruitment is ongoing and future expansion will include international studies.

Results

The first phase of VICHTA includes data from six UK RCTs, with individual participant data (IPD) on 5,674 residents across 308 care homes. IPD include age, sex, dementia status, length of stay, quality of life, clinical outcome measures, medications, resource use, and care home characteristics, such as funding, case mix, and occupancy. Follow-up ranges between four and sixteen months.

Conclusions

VICHTA collates and makes accessible data on a complex and under-represented research population for novel analyses, and to inform design of future studies. Planned expansion to international care home RCTs will facilitate a wider range of research questions. Interested collaborators can submit trial data or request data at http://www.virtualtrialsarchives.org.

Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency's "Consultation on proposals for legislative changes for clinical trials": a response from the Trials Methodology Research Partnership Adaptive Designs Working Group, with a focus on data sharing

In the UK, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency consulted on proposals "to improve and strengthen the UK clinical trials legislation to help us make the UK the best place to research and develop safe and innovative medicines". The purpose of the consultation was to help finalise the proposals and contribute to the drafting of secondary legislation. We discussed these proposals as members of the Trials Methodology Research Partnership Adaptive Designs Working Group, which is jointly funded by the Medical Research Council and the National Institute for Health and Care Research. Two topics arose frequently in the discussion: the emphasis on legislation, and the absence of questions on data sharing. It is our opinion that the proposals rely heavily on legislation to change practice. However, clinical trials are heterogeneous, and as a result some trials will struggle to comply with all of the proposed legislation. Furthermore, adaptive design clinical trials are even more heterogeneous than their non-adaptive counterparts, and face more challenges. Consequently, it is possible that increased legislation could have a greater negative impact on adaptive designs than non-adaptive designs. Overall, we are sceptical that the introduction of legislation will achieve the desired outcomes, with some exceptions. Meanwhile the topic of data sharing - making anonymised individual-level clinical trial data available to other investigators for further use - is entirely absent from the proposals and the consultation in general. However, as an aspect of the wider concept of open science and reproducible research, data sharing is an increasingly important aspect of clinical trials. The benefits of data sharing include faster innovation, improved surveillance of drug safety and effectiveness and decreasing participant exposure to unnecessary risk. There are already a number of UK-focused documents that discuss and encourage data sharing, for example, the Concordat on Open Research Data and the Medical Research Council's Data Sharing Policy. We strongly suggest that data sharing should be the norm rather than the exception, and hope that the forthcoming proposals on clinical trials invite discussion on this important topic.

Sharing study materials in health and medical research

Making study materials available allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the scientific literature. Sharing can take many forms and include a wide variety of outputs including code and data. Biomedical research can benefit from increased transparency but faces unique challenges for sharing, for instance, confidentiality concerns around participants' medical data. Both general and specialised repositories exist to aid in sharing most study materials. Sharing may also require skills and resources to ensure that it is done safely and effectively. Educating researchers on how to best share their materials, and properly rewarding these practices, requires action from a variety of stakeholders including journals, funders and research institutions.

Status, use and impact of sharing individual participant data from clinical trials: a scoping review

OBJECTIVES

To explore the impact of data-sharing initiatives on the intent to share data, on actual data sharing, on the use of shared data and on research output and impact of shared data.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

All studies investigating data-sharing practices for individual participant data (IPD) from clinical trials.

SOURCES OF EVIDENCE

We searched the Medline database, the Cochrane Library, the Science Citation Index Expanded and the Social Sciences Citation Index via Web of Science, and preprints and proceedings of the International Congress on Peer Review and Scientific Publication. In addition, we inspected major clinical trial data-sharing platforms, contacted major journals/publishers, editorial groups and some funders.

CHARTING METHODS

Two reviewers independently extracted information on methods and results from resources identified using a standardised questionnaire. A map of the extracted data was constructed and accompanied by a narrative summary for each outcome domain.

RESULTS

93 studies identified in the literature search (published between 2001 and 2020, median: 2018) and 5 from additional information sources were included in the scoping review. Most studies were descriptive and focused on early phases of the data-sharing process. While the willingness to share IPD from clinical trials is extremely high, actual data-sharing rates are suboptimal. A survey of journal data suggests poor to moderate enforcement of the policies by publishers. Metrics provided by platforms suggest that a large majority of data remains unrequested. When requested, the purpose of the reuse is more often secondary analyses and meta-analyses, rarely re-analyses. Finally, studies focused on the real impact of data-sharing were rare and used surrogates such as citation metrics.

CONCLUSIONS

There is currently a gap in the evidence base for the impact of IPD sharing, which entails uncertainties in the implementation of current data-sharing policies. High level evidence is needed to assess whether the value of medical research increases with data-sharing practices.

Protocol for the development of a repository of individual participant data from randomised controlled trials conducted in adult care homes (the Virtual International Care Homes Trials Archive (VICHTA))

Background

Approximately 418,000 people live in care homes in the UK, yet accessible, robust data on care home populations and organisation are lacking. This hampers our ability to plan, allocate resources or prevent risk. Large randomised controlled trials (RCTs) conducted in care homes offer a potential solution. The value of detailed data on residents’ demographics, outcomes and contextual information captured in RCTs has yet to be fully realised. Irrespective of the intervention tested, much of the trial data collected overlaps in terms of structured assessments and descriptive information. Given the time and costs required to prospectively collect data in these populations, pooling anonymised RCT data into a structured repository offers benefit; secondary analyses of pooled RCT data can improve understanding of this under-researched population and enhance the future trial design. This protocol describes the creation of a project-specific repository of individual participant data (IPD) from trials conducted in care homes and subsequent expansion into a legacy dataset for wider use, to address the need for accurate, high-quality IPD on this vulnerable population.

Methods

Informed by scoping of relevant literature, the principal investigators of RCTs conducted in adult care homes in the UK since 2010 will be invited to contribute trial IPD. Contributing trialists will form a Steering Committee who will oversee data sharing and remain gatekeepers of their own trial’s data. IPD will be cleaned and standardised in consultation with the Steering Committee for accuracy. Planned analyses include a comparison of pooled IPD with point estimates from administrative sources, to assess generalisability of RCT data to the wider care home population. We will also identify key resident characteristics and outcomes from within the trial repository, which will inform the development of a national minimum dataset for care homes. Following project completion, management will migrate to the Virtual Trials Archives, forming a legacy dataset which will be expanded to include international RCTs, and will be accessible to the wider research community for analyses.

Discussion

Analysis of pooled IPD has the potential to inform and direct future practice, research and policy at low cost, enhancing the value of existing data and reducing research waste. We aim to create a permanent archive for care home trial data and welcome the contribution of emerging trial datasets.

Obtaining and managing data sets for individual participant data meta-analysis: scoping review and practical guide

BACKGROUND

Shifts in data sharing policy have increased researchers' access to individual participant data (IPD) from clinical studies. Simultaneously the number of IPD meta-analyses (IPDMAs) is increasing. However, rates of data retrieval have not improved. Our goal was to describe the challenges of retrieving IPD for an IPDMA and provide practical guidance on obtaining and managing datasets based on a review of the literature and practical examples and observations.

METHODS

We systematically searched MEDLINE, Embase, and the Cochrane Library, until January 2019, to identify publications focused on strategies to obtain IPD. In addition, we searched pharmaceutical websites and contacted industry organizations for supplemental information pertaining to recent advances in industry policy and practice. Finally, we documented setbacks and solutions encountered while completing a comprehensive IPDMA and drew on previous experiences related to seeking and using IPD.

RESULTS

Our scoping review identified 16 articles directly relevant for the conduct of IPDMAs. We present short descriptions of these articles alongside overviews of IPD sharing policies and procedures of pharmaceutical companies which display certification of Principles for Responsible Clinical Trial Data Sharing via Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America or European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations websites. Advances in data sharing policy and practice affected the way in which data is requested, obtained, stored and analyzed. For our IPDMA it took 6.5 years to collect and analyze relevant IPD and navigate additional administrative barriers. Delays in obtaining data were largely due to challenges in communication with study sponsors, frequent changes in data sharing policies of study sponsors, and the requirement for a diverse skillset related to research, administrative, statistical and legal issues.

CONCLUSIONS

Knowledge of current data sharing practices and platforms as well as anticipation of necessary tasks and potential obstacles may reduce time and resources required for obtaining and managing data for an IPDMA. Sufficient project funding and timeline flexibility are pre-requisites for successful collection and analysis of IPD. IPDMA researchers must acknowledge the additional and unexpected responsibility they are placing on corresponding study authors or data sharing administrators and should offer assistance in readying data for sharing.

Statistical models to predict recruitment in clinical trials were rarely used by statisticians in UK and European networks

OBJECTIVE

Identify the current practice for recruitment prediction and monitoring within clinical trials.

STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING

Chief investigators (CIs) were surveyed to identify data sources and adjustments made to support recruitment prediction. Statisticians were surveyed to determine methods and adjustments used when predicting and monitoring recruitment. Participants were identified from the National Institute for Health Research recently funded studies, the UK Clinical Research Collaboration registered Clinical Trial Units network or by the European Clinical Research Infrastructure Network.

RESULTS

A total of 51 CIs (UK = 32, ECRIN = 19) and 104 statisticians (UK = 51, ECRIN = 53) were contacted. Response rates varied (CIs UK = 53% ECRIN = 32%; statisticians UK = 98% ECRIN = 36%). Multiple data sources are used to support recruitment rates, most commonly audit data from multiple sites. Variation in individual site recruitment rates are frequently incorporated, but staggered site openings were featured more commonly among UK respondents. Simple prediction methods are preferred to rarely used statistical models. Lack of familiarity with statistical methods are barriers to their use with evidence needed to justify the time required to support their implementation.

CONCLUSION

Simplistic methods will continue as the mainstay of prediction; however, generation of evidence supporting the benefits of complex statistical models should promote their implementations. Multiple data sources to support recruitment prediction are being used, and further work on the quality of these data is needed. Pressure to be optimistic about recruitment rates for the trial to be attractive to funders was felt by a sizable minority.

Targeting the delivery of dietary plant bioactives to those who would benefit most: from science to practical applications

Background

A healthy diet and optimal lifestyle choices are amongst the most important actions for the prevention of cardiometabolic diseases. Despite this, it appears difficult to convince consumers to select more nutritious foods. Furthermore, the development and production of healthier foods do not always lead to economic profits for the agro-food sector. Most dietary recommendations for the general population represent a “one-size-fits-all approach” which does not necessarily ensure that everyone has adequate exposure to health-promoting constituents of foods. Indeed, we now know that individuals show a high variability in responses when exposed to specific nutrients, foods, or diets.

Purpose

This review aims to highlight our current understanding of inter-individual variability in response to dietary bioactives, based on the integration of findings of the COST Action POSITIVe. We also evaluate opportunities for translation of scientific knowledge on inter-individual variability in response to dietary bioactives, once it becomes available, into practical applications for stakeholders, such as the agro-food industry. The potential impact from such applications will form an important impetus for the food industry to develop and market new high quality and healthy foods for specific groups of consumers in the future. This may contribute to a decrease in the burden of diet-related chronic diseases.

Individual differences in ADME (Absorption, Digestion, Metabolism and Excretion) is believed to underpin much of the inter-individual variation in responses.

Recent developments in the area of food metabolome databases and fast improvements in innovative metabotyping technologies hold great promise for improved profiling of dietary intake, exposure to individual ingredients, foods and dietary patterns, as well as our ability to identify individual responsiveness.

The food industry needs well-defined population clusters or targets in order to be able to design “personalized products”.

There are indeed excellent industrial opportunities for foods that modulate gut microbiota, and thereby enable the delivery of food bioactive metabolites.

It is currently not clear whether knowledge on individual nutrient needs, based on genetic or metagenomic data, would affect long-term dietary and health behaviours.

Data to support the development of dietary recommendations may need to be generated by new n-of-1-based study designs in the future.

Evaluation of repositories for sharing individual-participant data from clinical studies

BACKGROUND

Data repositories have the potential to play an important role in the effective and safe sharing of individual-participant data (IPD) from clinical studies. We analysed the current landscape of data repositories to create a detailed description of available repositories and assess their suitability for hosting data from clinical studies, from the perspective of the clinical researcher.

METHODS

We assessed repositories that enable storage, sharing, discoverability, re-use of the IPD and associated documents from clinical studies using a pre-defined set of 34 items and publicly available information from April to June 2018. For this purpose, we developed an indicator set to capture the maturity of the repositories' procedures and their suitability for the hosting of IPD. The indicators cover guidelines for data upload and data de-identification, data quality controls, contracts for upload and storage, flexibility of access, application of identifiers, availability of metadata, and long-term preservation.

RESULTS

We analysed 25 repositories, from an initial set of 55 identified as possibly relevant. Half of the included repositories were generic, i.e. not limited to a specific disease or clinical area and 13 were launched in the last 8 years. The sample was extremely heterogeneous and included repositories developed by research funders, infrastructures, universities, and editors. All but three repositories do not apply a fee for uploading, storage or access to data. None of the repositories completely demonstrated all the items included in the indicator set, but three repositories (Dryad, Drum, EASY) met - fully or partially - all items. Flexibility of data-access modalities appears to be limited, being lacking in half of the repositories.

CONCLUSIONS

Our evaluation, though often hampered by the lack of sufficient information, can help researchers to find a suitable repository for their datasets. Some repositories are more mature because of their support for clinical dataset preparation, contractual agreements, metadata and identifiers, different modalities of access, and long-term preservation of data. Further work is now required to achieve a more robust and accurate system for evaluation, which in turn may encourage the sharing of clinical study data.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

Study protocol available at https://zenodo.org/record/1438261#.W64kW9Egrcs .

Authors of trials from high-ranking anesthesiology journals were not willing to share raw data

OBJECTIVES

To analyze data sharing practices among authors of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published in seven high-ranking anesthesiology journals from 2014 to 2016.

STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING

We analyzed data sharing statements in 619 included RCTs and contacted their corresponding authors, asking them to share de-identified raw data from trial.

RESULTS

Of the 86 (14%) authors who responded to our query for data sharing, only 24 (4%) provided the requested data. Only one of those 24 had a data sharing statement in the published manuscript. Only 24 (4%) of manuscripts contained statements suggesting a willingness to share trial data; only one of those authors actually shared data. There was no difference in proportion of data sharing between studies with commercial and nonprofit funding. Among the 62 authors who refused to provide data, reasons were seldom provided. When reasons were provided, common themes included issues regarding data ownership and participant privacy. Only one of the seven analyzed journals encouraged authors toward data sharing.

CONCLUSION

Willingness to share data among anesthesiology RCTs is very low. To achieve widespread availability of de-identified trial data, journals should request their publication, as opposed to only encouraging authors to do so.

A beginner's guide to data stewardship and data sharing

STUDY DESIGN

A narrative review of principles, benefits and disadvantages, as well as methods of research data sharing.

OBJECTIVES

To assist prospective Spinal Cord authors and others with understanding and implementing data sharing, so that various benefits of such sharing can accrue to all spinal cord injury research stakeholders.

SETTING

International.

METHODS

The medical research and health care services literature was reviewed nonsystematically for relevant articles, and web sites were explored for information and services offered by various pertinent organizations.

RESULTS

Grant makers, professional organizations, research journals, publishers, and other entities in the research field increasingly stress the ethics as well as societal and practical benefits of data sharing, and require researchers to do so within a reasonable time after data collection ends. Sharing data, retrospectively, generally requires much time and resources, but when a data management plan is part of a research proposal from the start, costs are limited, and grant makers allow these costs to be part of a budget. There are many organizations that offer information on or even assist with preparing data for sharing and actual deposit in a data repository.

CONCLUSIONS

The requirement of data sharing is not likely to go away, and researchers interested in submitting their reports to Spinal Cord would do well to familiarize themselves with the myriad practical issues involved in preparing data for sharing.

Overview and experience of the YODA Project with clinical trial data sharing after 5 years

The Yale University Open Data Access (YODA) Project has facilitated access to clinical trial data since 2013. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the Project, describe key decisions that were made when establishing data sharing policies, and suggest how our experience and the experiences of our first two data generator partners, Medtronic, Inc. and Johnson & Johnson, can be used to enhance other ongoing or future initiatives.

Reflections and aspirations: the journal after 5 years

The journal recently celebrated its fifth anniversary. Like systematic reviews themselves, the journal is thriving and publishing a variety of protocols, reviews, and methods papers. We have also had success in publishing-themed series.

Data sharing and reanalysis of randomized controlled trials in leading biomedical journals with a full data sharing policy: survey of studies published in The BMJ and PLOS Medicine

OBJECTIVES

To explore the effectiveness of data sharing by randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in journals with a full data sharing policy and to describe potential difficulties encountered in the process of performing reanalyses of the primary outcomes.

DESIGN

Survey of published RCTs.

SETTING

PubMed/Medline.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

RCTs that had been submitted and published by The BMJ and PLOS Medicine subsequent to the adoption of data sharing policies by these journals.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE

The primary outcome was data availability, defined as the eventual receipt of complete data with clear labelling. Primary outcomes were reanalyzed to assess to what extent studies were reproduced. Difficulties encountered were described.

RESULTS

37 RCTs (21 from The BMJ and 16 from PLOS Medicine) published between 2013 and 2016 met the eligibility criteria. 17/37 (46%, 95% confidence interval 30% to 62%) satisfied the definition of data availability and 14 of the 17 (82%, 59% to 94%) were fully reproduced on all their primary outcomes. Of the remaining RCTs, errors were identified in two but reached similar conclusions and one paper did not provide enough information in the Methods section to reproduce the analyses. Difficulties identified included problems in contacting corresponding authors and lack of resources on their behalf in preparing the datasets. In addition, there was a range of different data sharing practices across study groups.

CONCLUSIONS

Data availability was not optimal in two journals with a strong policy for data sharing. When investigators shared data, most reanalyses largely reproduced the original results. Data sharing practices need to become more widespread and streamlined to allow meaningful reanalyses and reuse of data.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

Open Science Framework osf.io/c4zke.

Resource implications of preparing individual participant data from a clinical trial to share with external researchers

BACKGROUND

Demands are increasingly being made for clinical trialists to actively share individual participant data (IPD) collected from clinical trials using responsible methods that protect the confidentiality and privacy of clinical trial participants. Clinical trialists, particularly those receiving public funding, are often concerned about the additional time and money that data-sharing activities will require, but few published empirical data are available to help inform these decisions. We sought to evaluate the activity and resources required to prepare anonymised IPD from a clinical trial in anticipation of a future data-sharing request.

METHODS

Data from two UK publicly funded clinical trials were used for this exercise: 2437 participants with epilepsy recruited from 90 hospital outpatient clinics in the SANAD trial and 146 children with neuro-developmental problems recruited from 18 hospitals in the MENDS trial. We calculated the time and resources required to prepare each anonymised dataset and assemble a data pack ready for sharing.

RESULTS

The older SANAD trial (published 2007) required 50 hours of staff time with a total estimated associated cost of £3185 whilst the more recently completed MENDS trial (published 2012) required 39.5 hours of staff time with total estimated associated cost of £2540.

CONCLUSIONS

Clinical trial researchers, funders and sponsors should consider appropriate resourcing and allow reasonable time for preparing IPD ready for subsequent sharing. This process would be most efficient if prospectively built into the standard operational design and conduct of a clinical trial. Further empirical examples exploring the resource requirements in other settings is recommended.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

SANAD: International Standard Randomised Controlled Trials Registry: ISRCTN38354748 . Registered on 25 April 2003.

MENDS

EU Clinical Trials Register Eudract 2006-004025-28 . Registered on 16 May 2007. International Standard Randomised Controlled Trials Registry: ISRCTN05534585 /MREC 07/MRE08/43. Registered on 26 January 2007.

Data sharing: A new editorial initiative of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Implications for the editors' network

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) provides recommendations to improve the editorial standards and scientific quality of biomedical journals. These recommendations range from uniform technical requirements to more complex and elusive editorial issues including ethical aspects of the scientific process. Recently, registration of clinical trials, conflicts of interest disclosure, and new criteria for authorship -emphasizing the importance of responsibility and accountability-, have been proposed. Last year, a new editorial initiative to foster sharing of clinical trial data was launched. This review discusses this novel initiative with the aim of increasing awareness among readers, investigators, authors and editors belonging to the Editors' Network of the European Society of Cardiology.

Data Sharing: A New Editorial Initiative of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Implications for the Editors' Network

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) provides recommendations to improve the editorial standards and scientific quality of biomedical journals. These recommendations range from uniform technical requirements to more complex and elusive editorial issues including ethical aspects of the scientific process. Recently, registration of clinical trials, conflicts of interest disclosure, and new criteria for authorship -emphasizing the importance of responsibility and accountability-, have been proposed. Last year, a new editorial initiative to foster sharing of clinical trial data was launched. This review discusses this novel initiative with the aim of increasing awareness among readers, investigators, authors and editors belonging to the Editors' Network of the European Society of Cardiology.

Data Sharing: A New Editorial Initiative of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Implications for the Editors' Network

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) provides recommendations to improve the editorial standards and scientific quality of biomedical journals. These recommendations range from uniform technical requirements to more complex and elusive editorial issues including ethical aspects of the scientific process. Recently, registration of clinical trials, conflicts of interest disclosure, and new criteria for authorship - emphasizing the importance of responsibility and accountability -, have been proposed. Last year, a new editorial initiative to foster sharing of clinical trial data was launched. This review discusses this novel initiative with the aim of increasing awareness among readers, investigators, authors and editors belonging to the Editors' Network of the European Society of Cardiology.

Data Sharing: a New Editorial Initiative from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Implications for the Editors' Network

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) provides recommendations to improve the editorial standards and scientific quality of biomedical journals. These recommendations range from uniform technical requirements to more complex and elusive editorial issues including ethical aspects of the scientific process. Recently, registration of clinical trials, conflicts of interest disclosure, and new criteria for authorship-emphasizing the importance of responsibility and accountability-, have been proposed. This year a new editorial initiative to foster sharing of clinical trial data has been launched. This review discusses this novel initiative with the aim of increasing awareness among readers, investigators, authors and Editors of the Editors' Network of the European Society of Cardiology.

Data sharing: A new editorial initiative of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors : Implications for the Editors' Network

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) provides recommendations to improve the editorial standards and scientific quality of biomedical journals. These recommendations range from uniform technical requirements to more complex and elusive editorial issues including ethical aspects of the scientific process. Recently, registration of clinical trials, conflicts of interest disclosure, and new criteria for authorship - emphasising the importance of responsibility and accountability - have been proposed. Last year, a new editorial initiative to foster sharing of clinical trial data was launched. This review discusses this novel initiative with the aim of increasing awareness among readers, investigators, authors and editors belonging to the Editors' Network of the European Society of Cardiology.

Data Sharing: A New Editorial Initiative of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Implications for the Editors´ Network

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) provides recommendations to improve the editorial standards and scientific quality of biomedical journals. These recommendations range from uniform technical requirements to more complex and elusive editorial issues including ethical aspects of the scientific process. Recently, registration of clinical trials, conflicts of interest disclosure, and new criteria for authorship - emphasizing the importance of responsibility and accountability-, have been proposed. Last year, a new editorial initiative to foster sharing of clinical trial data was launched. This review discusses this novel initiative with the aim of increasing awareness among readers, investigators, authors and editors belonging to the Editors´ Network of the European Society of Cardiology. Resumo O Comitê Internacional de Editores de Revistas Médicas (ICMJE) fornece recomendações para aprimorar o padrão editorial e a qualidade científica das revistas biomédicas. Tais recomendações variam desde requisitos técnicos de uniformização até assuntos editoriais mais complexos e elusivos, como os aspectos éticos do processo científico. Recentemente, foram propostos registro de ensaios clínicos, divulgação de conflitos de interesse e novos critérios de autoria, enfatizando a importância da responsabilidade e da responsabilização. No último ano, lançou-se uma nova iniciativa editorial para fomentar o compartilhamento dos dados de ensaios clínicos. Esta revisão discute essa nova iniciativa visando a aumentar a conscientização de leitores, investigadores, autores e editores filiados à Rede de Editores da Sociedade Europeia de Cardiologia.

Filipiak K, Flammer A, Fleck E, Gatzov P, Ginghina C, Goncalves L, Haouala H, Hassanein M, Heusch G, Huber K, Hulín I, Ivanusa M, Krittayaphong R, Lau CP, Marinskis G, Mach F, Moreira LF, Nieminen T, Oukerraj L, Perings S, Pierard L, Potpara T, Reyes-Caorsi W, Rim SJ, Rødevand O, Saade G, Sander M, Shlyakhto E, Timuralp B, Tousoulis D, Ural D, Piek JJ, Varga A, Lüscher TF. Data Sharing: A New Editorial Initiative of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Implications for the Editors' Network

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) provides recommendations to improve the editorial standards and scientific quality of biomedical journals. These recommendations range from uniform technical requirements to more complex and elusive editorial issues including ethical aspects of the scientific process. Recently, registration of clinical trials, conflicts of interest disclosure, and new criteria for authorship- emphasizing the importance of responsibility and accountability-, have been proposed. Last year, a new editorial initiative to foster sharing of clinical trial data was launched. This review discusses this novel initiative with the aim of increasing awareness among readers, investigators, authors and editors belonging to the Editors' Network of the European Society of Cardiology.

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors trial data sharing requirement and participants' consent

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) has published a draft proposal on de-identified individual clinical trial participant data (IPD) sharing, stating that sharing trial data requires planning to ensure appropriate research ethics committee approval and participants' informed consent. This is why its implementation will be deferred for 1 year after the publication of the final version of the policy. When conducting research with anonymous data, it is not feasible to obtain the informed consent from research participants. De-identified IPD are anonymous to the investigator who is performing the secondary analysis. De-identified IPD meta-analyses have been conducted for decades. Public funders, industry and foundations have recently implemented new IPD sharing procedures; almost all trials used for secondary analyses so far were conducted without participant's consent to de-identified IPD. As stated by the ICMJE, de-identified IPD protects participant's confidentiality. It follows that publishing secondary analyses from completed trials without participant's consent is ethically acceptable. From the ethical perspective, the ICMJE requirement on de-identified IPD sharing should be implemented from the day the policy is published.

Commentary: data sharing in South East Asia

Louis Grue and colleagues describe their experiences of sharing data in an international research collaboration

Data sharing through an NIH central database repository: a cross-sectional survey of BioLINCC users

OBJECTIVE

To characterise experiences using clinical research data shared through the National Institutes of Health (NIH)'s Biologic Specimen and Data Repository Information Coordinating Center (BioLINCC) clinical research data repository, along with data recipients' perceptions of the value, importance and challenges with using BioLINCC data.

DESIGN AND SETTING

Cross-sectional web-based survey.

PARTICIPANTS

All investigators who requested and received access to clinical research data from BioLINCC between 2007 and 2014.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Reasons for BioLINCC data request, research project plans, interactions with original study investigators, BioLINCC experience and other project details.

RESULTS

There were 536 investigators who requested and received access to clinical research data from BioLINCC between 2007 and 2014. Of 441 potential respondents, 195 completed the survey (response rate=44%); 89% (n=174) requested data for an independent study, 17% (n=33) for pilot/preliminary analysis. Commonly cited reasons for requesting data through BioLINCC were feasibility of collecting data of similar size and scope (n=122) and insufficient financial resources for primary data collection (n=76). For 95% of respondents (n=186), a primary research objective was to complete new research, as opposed to replicate prior analyses. Prior to requesting data from BioLINCC, 18% (n=36) of respondents had contacted the original study investigators to obtain data, whereas 24% (n=47) had done so to request collaboration. Nearly all (n=176; 90%) respondents found the data to be suitable for their proposed project; among those who found the data unsuitable (n=19; 10%), cited reasons were data too complicated to use (n=5) and data poorly organised (n=5). Half (n=98) of respondents had completed their proposed projects, of which 67% (n=66) have been published.

CONCLUSIONS

Investigators were primarily using clinical research data from BioLINCC for independent research, making use of data that would otherwise have not been feasible to collect.

Publishing descriptions of non-public clinical datasets: proposed guidance for researchers, repositories, editors and funding organisations

Sharing of experimental clinical research data usually happens between individuals or research groups rather than via public repositories, in part due to the need to protect research participant privacy. This approach to data sharing makes it difficult to connect journal articles with their underlying datasets and is often insufficient for ensuring access to data in the long term. Voluntary data sharing services such as the Yale Open Data Access (YODA) and Clinical Study Data Request (CSDR) projects have increased accessibility to clinical datasets for secondary uses while protecting patient privacy and the legitimacy of secondary analyses but these resources are generally disconnected from journal articles-where researchers typically search for reliable information to inform future research. New scholarly journal and article types dedicated to increasing accessibility of research data have emerged in recent years and, in general, journals are developing stronger links with data repositories. There is a need for increased collaboration between journals, data repositories, researchers, funders, and voluntary data sharing services to increase the visibility and reliability of clinical research. Using the journal Scientific Data as a case study, we propose and show examples of changes to the format and peer-review process for journal articles to more robustly link them to data that are only available on request. We also propose additional features for data repositories to better accommodate non-public clinical datasets, including Data Use Agreements (DUAs).

Sharing raw data from clinical trials: what progress since we first asked "Whose data set is it anyway?"

Ten years ago, one of the first papers published in Trials was a commentary entitled "Whose data set is it anyway?" The commentary pointed out that trialists routinely refused requests for data sharing and argued that this attitude was a community standard that had no rational basis. At the time, there had been few calls for clinical trial data sharing and certainly no institutional support. Today the situation could not be more different. Numerous organizations now recommend or require raw data to be made available, including the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, which recently proposed that clinical trial data sharing be a "condition of … publication." Furthermore, the literature is replete with papers covering an enormously wide variety of topics on data sharing. But despite a tectonic shift in attitudes, we are yet to see clinical trial data sharing become an unquestioned norm, where a researcher can readily download a data set from a trial almost as easily as they can now download a copy of the published paper. The battle over the next few years is to go beyond changing minds to ensuring that real data sets are routinely made available.

How should individual participant data (IPD) from publicly funded clinical trials be shared?

BACKGROUND

Individual participant data (IPD) from completed clinical trials should be responsibly shared to support efficient clinical research, generate new knowledge and bring benefit to patients. The Medical Research Council (MRC) Hubs for Trials Methodology Research (HTMR) has developed guidance to facilitate the sharing of IPD from publicly funded clinical trials.

METHODS

Development of the guidance was completed over four phases which included a focussed review of policy documents, a web-based survey of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration (CRC) Registered Clinical Trials Units (CTU) Network, participation of an expert committee and an open consultation with the UKCRC Registered CTU Network. The project was funded by the MRC HTMR (MR/L004933/1-R39).

RESULTS

Good practice principles include: (i) the use of a controlled access approach, using a transparent and robust system to review requests and provide secure data access; (ii) seeking consent for sharing IPD from trial participants in all future clinical trials with adequate assurance that patient privacy and confidentiality can be maintained; and (iii) establishing an approach to resource the sharing of IPD which would include support from trial funders, sponsor organisations and users of IPD. The guidance has been endorsed by Cancer Research UK, MRC Methodology Research Programme Advisory Group, Wellcome Trust and the Executive Group of the UKCRC Registered CTU Network. The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) has confirmed it is supportive of the application of this guidance.

CONCLUSIONS

Implementation of these principles will improve transparency, increase the coherent sharing of IPD from publicly funded trials, and help publicly funded trials to adhere to trial funder and journal requirements for data sharing.