AUTHOR=Wang Xinyi , Long Youlin , Yang Liu , Huang Jin , Du Liang 

TITLE=Results Reporting and Early Termination of Childhood Obesity Trials Registered on ClinicalTrials.gov

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Pediatrics

VOLUME=Volume 10 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pediatrics/articles/10.3389/fped.2022.860610

DOI=10.3389/fped.2022.860610

ISSN=2296-2360

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Objective</title><p>Childhood obesity is one of the most severe challenges of public health in the twenty-first century and may increase the risk of various physical and psychological diseases in adulthood. The prevalence and predictors of unreported results and premature termination in pediatric obesity research are not clear. We aimed to characterize childhood obesity trials registered on <ext-link ext-link-type="uri" xlink:href="https://ClinicalTrials.gov" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ClinicalTrials.gov</ext-link> and identify features associated with early termination and lack of results reporting.</p></sec><sec><title>Methods</title><p>Records were downloaded and screened for all childhood obesity trials from the inception of <ext-link ext-link-type="uri" xlink:href="https://ClinicalTrials.gov" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ClinicalTrials.gov</ext-link> to July 29, 2021. We performed descriptive analyses of characteristics, Cox regression for early termination, and logistic regression for lack of results reporting.</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>We identified 1,312 trials registered at <ext-link ext-link-type="uri" xlink:href="https://ClinicalTrials.gov" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ClinicalTrials.gov</ext-link>. Among <ext-link ext-link-type="uri" xlink:href="https://clinicalTrials.gov" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">clinicalTrials.gov</ext-link> registered childhood obesity-related intervention trials, trial unreported results were 88.5 and 4.3% of trials were prematurely terminated. Additionally, the factors that reduced the risk of unreported outcomes were US-registered clinical studies and drug intervention trials. Factors associated with a reduced risk of early termination are National Institutes of Health (NIH) or other federal agency funding and large trials.</p></sec><sec><title>Conclusion</title><p>The problem of unreported results in clinical trials of childhood obesity is serious. Therefore, timely bulletin of the results and reasons for termination remain urgent aims for childhood obesity trials.</p></sec>