11. Juli 2022 — Comments are off for this post.
The funding for COVID-evidence expired by June 1, 2022. The COVID-evidence database will continue to be automatically updated weekly until December 31, 2022 but manual screening has been stopped as of June 1, 2022.
We thank our funder (SNSF, project 31CA30_196190), collaborators, supporters, and users of COVID-evidence and we remain open to future collaborations.
1. Februar 2022 — Comments are off for this post.
In January 2022, we launched a living overview of registered trials assessing non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to prevent COVID-19. The overview presents key trial characteristics and, once available, links to published results.
A scoping review on trials assessing NPIs as of August 2021 identified 41 trials and was recently published in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine. Additionally, a blog entry has been published in BMJ EBM Spotlight.
Users of COVID-evidence are also able to search the database for NPI trials assessing the topic filter “Preventive non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI)“.
1. Februar 2022 — Comments are off for this post.
We implemented a new topic filter “Post-acute COVID-19" allowing users to filter for trials assessing interventions to treat post-acute COVID-19 symptoms. Methodological filter details are provided on OSF.
24. September 2021 — Comments are off for this post.
We now provide a "World Map" on COVID-19 trials.
It shows the number of registered trials (locally and internationally), number of planned participants, and number of cases per country over time. Various visualization modes are available, e.g. a ratio mode ratio showing trials per 100'000 cases for each country.
24. September 2021 — Comments are off for this post.
Two of our projects were recently published as preprints:
10. März 2021 — Comments are off for this post.
We are continuously working to improve the users’ experience for the COVID-evidence database and new search features have been added:
Our article “Recruitment and Results Reporting of COVID-19 Randomized Clinical Trials Registered in the First 100 Days of the Pandemic” is now available on JAMA Open Network.
Many thanks to all trial teams that have accepted to share their recruitment status and accrual with us.
F1000 has kindly invited us to give insight on our experience in assessing the first 100 days of the COVID-19 clinical research agenda and the need for more international collaboration
7. Oktober 2020 — Comments are off for this post.
We are thankful for our new project partner the Epistemonikos Foundation and the amazing work they are conducting on their Living OVerview of Evidence (L·OVE) platform for COVID-19. We are now using their platform to track all publications and preprints of randomized controlled trials assessing an intervention to treat or prevent COVID-19.
2. Oktober 2020 — Comments are off for this post.
Our article “The worldwide clinical trial research response to the COVID-19 pandemic - the first 100 days” is now available on F1000.
Background: Never before have clinical trials drawn as much public attention as those testing interventions for COVID-19. We aimed to describe the worldwide COVID-19 clinical research response and its evolution over the first 100 days of the pandemic.
Methods: Descriptive analysis of planned, ongoing or completed trials by April 9, 2020 testing any intervention to treat or prevent COVID-19, systematically identified in trial registries, preprint servers, and literature databases. A survey was conducted of all trials to assess their recruitment status up to July 6, 2020.
Results: Most of the 689 trials (overall target sample size 396,366) were small (median sample size 120; interquartile range [IQR] 60-300) but randomized (75.8%; n=522) and were often conducted in China (51.1%; n=352) or the USA (11%; n=76). 525 trials (76.2%) planned to include 155,571 hospitalized patients, and 25 (3.6%) planned to include 96,821 health-care workers. Treatments were evaluated in 607 trials (88.1%), frequently antivirals (n=144) or antimalarials (n=112); 78 trials (11.3%) focused on prevention, including 14 vaccine trials. No trial investigated social distancing. Interventions tested in 11 trials with >5,000 participants were also tested in 169 smaller trials (median sample size 273; IQR 90-700). Hydroxychloroquine alone was investigated in 110 trials. While 414 trials (60.0%) expected completion in 2020, only 35 trials (4.1%; 3,071 participants) were completed by July 6. Of 112 trials with detailed recruitment information, 55 had recruited <20% of the targeted sample; 27 between 20-50%; and 30 over 50% (median 14.8% [IQR 2.0-62.0%]).
Conclusions: The size and speed of the COVID-19 clinical trials agenda is unprecedented. However, most trials were small investigating a small fraction of treatment options. The feasibility of this research agenda is questionable, and many trials may end in futility, wasting research resources. Much better coordination is needed to respond to global health threats.
Many thanks to all our co-authors for their amazing work.
We used the COVID-evidence database to foster collaboration and evidence generation on COVID-19: "Mortality outcomes with hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in COVID-19: an international collaborative meta-analysis of randomized trials" (preprint). The thus far largest meta-analysis of RCTs on hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in COVID-19, including 26 trials, most of them unpublished
We sincerely thank all trial investigator teams for this timely collaboration!
The COVID-evidence BASIC database will be updated every Monday. The database now contains 3094 trials assessing to prevent or treat COVID-19. Please keep in mind that only records tagged as “manual extraction completed” have been finalized by human extraction.