Development of The Cochrane Collaboration's Central Register of Controlled Clinical Trials
Abstract
The Cochrane Collaboration has established a centralized database of controlled trials and other studies of health care interventions (called CENTRAL) that serves as the best available resource for all those preparing and maintaining systematic reviews or otherwise searching for trials. CENTRAL is available on The Cochrane Library. This article describes the history and methods of CENTRAL's development and the results of an analysis of the current composition of CENTRAL. As of September 2000, CENTRAL contained almost 300,000 citations to reports of trials, contributed mainly by Cochrane Groups and Centers around the world. Development of CENTRAL has been an ambitious, scholarly undertaking and has resulted in a valuable resource: CENTRAL includes citations to controlled trials that may not be indexed in MEDLINE, EMBASE, or other bibliographic databases; citations published internationally in many languages; and citations that are available only in conference proceedings or other hard-to-access sources.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Including the descriptors 'pilot' or 'feasibility' as well as 'randomised' in the title would enable these studies to be easily indexed in electronic databases, such as PubMed.
“This would also enable these studies to be easily indexed in electronic databases, such as PubMed.33”
From CONSORT 2010 statement: extension to randomised pilot and feasibility trials. (2016) · cites this paper as [33]
A succinct description that conveys the topic and trial design will facilitate retrieval from electronic database or internet searches and rapid judgment of relevance.
“A succinct description that conveys the topic (study population, intervention, comparator) and trial design (eg, parallel group randomised trial) will facilitate retrieval from electronic database or internet searches and rapid judgment of relevance.28”
From SPIRIT 2025 explanation and elaboration: updated guideline for protocols of randomised trials (2025) · cites this paper as [28]
The title provides an important means of trial identification.
“The title provides an important means of trial identification.”
From SPIRIT 2025 explanation and elaboration: updated guideline for protocols of randomised trials (2025) · cites this paper as [28]
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 14 · Cited by 198
- Authors
- Dickersin, K., Manheimer, E., Wieland, S., Robinson, K. A., Lefebvre, C., & McDonald, S.
- Affiliations
- Cochrane Canada (CA)
- University of Maryland, Baltimore (US)
- Cochrane (GB)
- Cochrane (BR)
- Venue
- Evaluation & the Health Professions
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2002-03-01
- Volume
- 25
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 38-38
- ISSN
- 0163-2787 (ISSN-L)
- 0000-0000
- OpenAlex
- W2045714826
- Cited by
- 198
- References
- 14
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 12
- FWCI
- 18.71
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Evaluation & the Health Professions (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- U.S. Public Health Service (467-MZ-001266)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › Meta-analysis and systematic reviews
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
- Life Sciences › Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics › Pharmacology › Pharmaceutical industry and healthcare
- Keywords
- systematic reviews, bibliographic databases, clinical trial registration, Cochrane Library, citation analysis, health interventions
- MeSH terms
- Humans, Information Services, International Cooperation, Organizations, Nonprofit, Periodicals as Topic, Program Development, Controlled Clinical Trials as Topic, Evidence-Based Medicine
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
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