Randomized trials of perinatal interventions in Belgium and Europe

Using statistics from United Nations Demographic Yearbooks (1958-1983) and the Oxford Database of Perinatal Trials, a survey of perinatal randomized control trials (RCTs) during the last 25 years in Europe was performed. Total number of trials has been related to average annual population, average annual total births and average annual total of medical doctors. There is a clear geographical trend; Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland and the United Kingdom in the leading group produce, on average, 50 times as many randomized trials as socialist countries other than Hungary and the German Democratic Republic. Within Belgium itself, similar disparities are observed: university A has produced twice as many RCTs as all the other universities pooled together. For Belgium, the introduction of multicenter trials may be reversing this situation, and uptake of ongoing multicenter trials seems homogeneous within the country.