Comparison of COVID-19 studies registered in the clinical trial platforms: A research ethics analysis perspective

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) treatment must be based on scientific methods such as clinical trials. Trials involving human subjects and those requiring a risk-benefit analysis may occasionally face challenges owing to the time limitations in the pandemic.

This study analyses the WHO's International Clinical Trials Registry Platform and clinicaltrials.gov, where most COVID-19 clinical trials are registered, according to ethical criteria including study design, conflicts of interest, enrollment of healthcare workers, study locations, site-, design-, and participant-related issues. The discussion is based on three aspects: the quality of the information to be produced, the relevance to significant health problems, and the creation or evaluation of interventions, policies, or practices that promote individual or public health.

There were significant differences between the two platforms regarding the investigational medicinal product (IMP), the comparator, ethics committee/institutional review board approval, plan to share individual participant data, study phase, site, IMP, and design-related issues. Conflict of interest, sponsor information, and management of vulnerable groups were the main areas wherein both platforms lacked sufficient information.

With this analysis, we aimed to define a minimum set of ethical criteria for clinical trial platforms to obtain standardization between these two platforms.