1762P - Are published data up-to-date? Analysis of time to publication in major oncological journals

Background

Dissemination of research results, including data from clinical trials, is one of the essential responsibilities of all scientists. Moreover, whole community of researchers, patients, and general public, should have access to research data at earliest possible moment. However, significant delay between completion of the study and publication of its results has been observed; thus, we aimed to analyze the time from database lockdown to publication and factors that might be associated with it.

Methods

We analyzed all original publications reporting any clinical data published in 2020 and 2021 in 2 leading oncological journal – Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) and Annals of Oncology (AoO). Information of cut-off (database lock) date, publication date, type of the study and its sponsor has been extracted. Descriptive statistics, t-test and chi-square tests were used for statistical analyses.

Results

Overall, 652 articles (482 from JCO, 170 from AoO) has been identified - 63% (411) reported results of clinical trials, 47% (193) of them reporting data from clinical trials. Only 52.3% (341) of trials reported the cut-off date. Reports from clinical trials reported cut-off date more often than other studies (65.5% vs 29.9%, p<0.001). Median time from data cut-off to publication (PT) was 15.4 months (range 1.2-130.8), with PT of 12-24 months and >24 months being 45.2% (154) and 22.6% (77), respectively. Reports of studies other than clinical trials had PT>24m more often than clinical trials (36.1% vs 19%; p=0.003). Commercially sponsored studies reported cut-off date more often than academic studies (79.2% vs 41.4%; p<0.001) but there was no difference in PT depending on type of sponsor (p=0.170).

Conclusions

Despite presence of reporting guidelines, significant proportion of scientific publications do not report exact date of data cut-off or last follow-up what make difficult to assess topicality and maturity of data. Moreover, nearly one-quarter of publications report results that are older than 2 years. Causes leading to such disproportion and publication of outdated results may lead on the authors’, editors’ or publishers’ side and need to be studied in more depth to ensure timely publication of relevant research data.

Clinical trial identification

Editorial acknowledgement

Legal entity responsible for the study

The authors.

Funding

Has not received any funding.

Disclosure

P. Sobczuk: Financial Interests, Personal, Other, Travel grant: Novartis; Financial Interests, Personal, Other, Travel Grant: MSD, BMS; Financial Interests, Personal, Invited Speaker: Swixx BioPharma, BMS, Gilead; Financial Interests, Personal, Advisory Board: Sandoz; Financial Interests, Personal, Stocks/Shares: CelonPharma; Non-Financial Interests, Institutional, Product Samples: Immutep; Non-Financial Interests, Leadership Role, Board Member, Chair of Young Oncologists Section: Polish Society of Clinical Oncology. P. Rutkowski: Financial Interests, Personal, Invited Speaker, honoraria for lectures: MSD, BMS, Pierre Fabre; Financial Interests, Personal, Advisory Board: MSD, BMS, Pierre Fabre, Merck, Sanofi, Blueprint Medicines, Philogen; Financial Interests, Personal, Invited Speaker: Merck, Sanofi, Novartis, AstraZeneca; Financial Interests, Institutional, Research Grant, research grant for ISS: Pfizer; Financial Interests, Institutional, Funding, research grant for institution: BMS; Non-Financial Interests, Member of Board of Directors: Polish Society of Surgical Oncology; Non-Financial Interests, Member of Board of Directors, President: Polish Oncological Society. All other authors have declared no conflicts of interest.