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. 2020 Aug 27;4(1):e100051.
doi: 10.1136/bmjos-2019-100051. eCollection 2020.

Publication rate in preclinical research: a plea for preregistration

Mira van der Naald  1   2 , Steven Wenker  1 , Pieter A Doevendans  1   3 , Kimberley E Wever  4 , Steven A J Chamuleau  1   2
Affiliations

Publication rate in preclinical research: a plea for preregistration

Mira van der Naald et al. BMJ Open Sci. .

Abstract

Objectives: The ultimate goal of biomedical research is the development of new treatment options for patients. Animal models are used if questions cannot be addressed otherwise. Currently, it is widely believed that a large fraction of performed studies are never published, but there are no data that directly address this question.

Methods: We have tracked a selection of animal study protocols approved in the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands, to assess whether these have led to a publication with a follow-up period of 7 years.

Results: We found that 60% of all animal study protocols led to at least one publication (full text or abstract). A total of 5590 animals were used in these studies, of which 26% was reported in the resulting publications.

Conclusions: The data presented here underline the need for preclinical preregistration, in view of the risk of reporting and publication bias in preclinical research. We plea that all animal study protocols should be prospectively registered on an online, accessible platform to increase transparency and data sharing. To facilitate this, we have developed a platform dedicated to animal study protocol registration: www.preclinicaltrials.eu.

Keywords: preclinicaltrials.eu; preregistration; publication bias; publication rate; translational research.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow chart showing the total number of applications, the number of included applications, the number of publications in the PubMed/EMBASE search, in the full-text screening and those included in the linking to the applications.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Kaplan-Meier curve with time between approval by the animal ethics committee until first publication (abstract or full text).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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