About the metaRegister of Controlled Trials and rationale

The mRCT is a major international searchable database of ongoing randomised controlled trials in all areas of healthcare, built by combining registers held by public, charitable and commercial sponsors of trials. The mRCT also contains some completed trials. The mRCT is a free service that allows users to search all participating registers, which are asked to submit trial records including specified essential data items. Where more detailed entries are available in the original register, links are available to the source website.

The mRCT has been set up to provide a service to the following groups:

people using evidence from controlled trials who want to be confident that they are aware of all of the trial evidence relevant to a particular question;

research funding agencies (public, commercial and charitable) who want to take their funding decisions in the light of information about relevant ongoing research, both to avoid duplication of effort and to promote collaboration; and

patients, participants, and other decision-makers who wish to be informed about trials in which they can participate or to which they can contribute in other ways.

The mRCT was established in response to an initiative taken in the UK in July 1998 that brought together representatives from the UK Medical Research Council, the National Health Service Executive, medical charities, pharmaceutical companies, the UK Cochrane Centre, and journals such as the British Medical Journal and The Lancet (click here to view a report of the meeting).

The agreed action plan was initially taken forward by an Ad Hoc Group for Prospective Registration of Controlled Trials. The active involvement of a major international drug company - GlaxoSmithKline (see the British Medical Journal Editorial describing the company's policies) - and subsequent commitments from other international organisations, meant that the scope of the mRCT quickly extended outside Britain.

The Ad Hoc Group advised on the minimum essential fields that ideally should be displayed on each trial. These fields have been changed recently following further expert advice (see essential data items), and we hope that registers will gradually work towards including these extra items, so that there is consistency of content across all the trial records. The (UK) Medical Research Council helped to draw up a Memorandum of Understanding between Current Controlled Trials Ltd and Research Funders to summarise Current Controlled Trials' responsibilities as the organisation hosting the mRCT and the responsibilities of those providing the information.

A conference on 'Registering Information about Controlled Trials', organised by the British Medical Journal Publishing Group, The Lancet, and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (under the aegis of the Ad Hoc Group), took place in London on October 4 1999 (click here for a report of the meeting). Current Controlled Trials organised a follow-on meeting: 'Ways and Means of Registering Information about Controlled Trials' in London the following day (click here to view a report of the Current Controlled Trials meeting).

All trials records are in English; a brief introduction to Current Controlled Trials has been prepared in French, German, Spanish, Italian, and other languages will be added.

People, anywhere in the world, who wish to promote and implement prospective registration of randomised controlled trials are invited to participate in this endeavour. Please contact us.