Evidence of publication bias favouring positive results, both in which studies are reported in journals and in how they are treated by peer reviewers, emerged at the recently concluded 6th Peer Review Congress in Vancouver.
Dr. Seth Leopold, orthopedic surgeon at the University of Washington School of Medicine, described his group's study, where two variations of a fabricated, CONSORT-conforming randomised controlled trial (RCT) were made. These were sent to 209 peer reviewers for Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery and Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research. Peer reviewers were randomised to receive each version of the paper, which were identical apart from the direction of the finding. It was found that the paper reporting a positive result received more positive reviews for methodological rigour, was scrutinised less carefully for errors, and was more likely to receive recommendations to publish.
A further analysis was made of published vs. unpublished Food and Drug Administration (FDA) data on antidepressant trial outcomes, which now includes ‘published’ trials if they appear in review articles. It was found that negative trial results were bundled with positive ones in reviews, rather than being fully published. Of eight trials reviewed by the FDA in the study period, half of which were deemed positive and half negative, outcomes were reported positively 103 times compared to eight times negatively.
Two other abstracts presented on September 11 investigated the time to publication of manuscripts rejected by major biomedical journals. A common finding was that a quarter of manuscripts in the samples remain apparently unpublished, even after a number of years.
These findings - although not yet published in peer-reviewed journals - seem
to add to the evidence of publication bias favouring positive results. The
findings are also seen to suggest that certain 'gaps' in research studies
and wasted research efforts continue to take place.
The Peer Review Congress - held every four years - aims to improve the quality and credibility of biomedical peer review and publication and to help advance the efficiency, effectiveness, and equitability of the dissemination of biomedical information throughout the world.
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