T 22: Comparative Strengths of Public and Commercial Clinical Trials Databases: A Case Study

Poster Presenter

Diane Q Webb

Bizint Solutions Inc.
United States

Objectives

In this case study, commercial and public clinical trials databases were searched for a chosen disease in order to evaluate differences in trial coverage and content.

Method

The following clinical trial databases were searched: NIH ClinicalTrials.gov, EudraCT, ICTRP, Citeline TrialTrove, Adis Clinical Trials Insight, and Cortellis. Searches were repeated after 30 days to evaluate updates.

Results

The study evaluates differences in trial coverage and content between the six databases. Some trials are retrieved from all databases, others are retrieved from several databases, and some are unique to a particular database. These coverage differences are sometimes due to index terminology differences (for example, the disease may not be indexed according to the search terms), to lack of indexing for the searched disease, or the trial may not be present in the database(s). Content for the same trial will also vary between databases, due to variation in database structure, update frequency, and trials covered.

Conclusion

Each of the commercial and public clinical trials databases have different strengths in coverage and content. Some databases provide excellent information for a specific country or region, while others provide global coverage. Commercial databases tend to focus on key therapeutic areas. And each database provides different levels of indexing and vocabulary/data standardization. The case study will illustrate how elements of unique content in each database can be used to support competitive analysis and trial planning.