Differences in reporting serious adverse events in industry sponsored clinical trial registries and journal articles on antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs: a cross-sectional study

Objective: To examine the degree of concordance in reporting serious adverse events (SAEs) from antidepressant and antipsychotic drug trials among journal articles and clinical trial summaries, and to categorise types of discrepancies. Design: Cross-sectional study of summaries of all antidepressant and antipsychotic trials included in an online trial registry and their first associated stand-alone journal articles. Setting: Clinicalstudyresults.org, sponsored by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America; clinicaltrials.gov, administered by the US National Institutes of Health. Main outcome measure: 3 coders extracted data on the numbers and types of SAEs. Results: 244 trial summaries for six antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs were retrieved, 142 (58.2%) listing an associated article. Of 1608 SAEs in drug-treated participants according to trial summaries, 694 (43.2%) did not appear in associated articles. Nearly 60% of SAEs counted in articles and 41% in trial summaries had no description. Most cases of death (62.3%) and suicide (53.3%) were not reported in articles. Half or more of the 142 pairs were discordant in reporting the number (49.3%) or description (67.6%) of SAEs. These discrepancies resulted from journal articles' (1) omission of complete SAE data, (2) reporting acute phase study results only and (3) more restrictive reporting criteria. Trial summaries with zero SAE were 2.35 (95% CI, 1.58 to 3.49; p<0.001) times more likely to be published with no discrepancy in their associated journal article. Since clinicalstudyresults.org was removed from the Internet in 2011, only 7.8% of retrieved trial summaries appear with results on clinicaltrials.gov. Conclusions: Substantial discrepancies exist in SAE data found in journal articles and registered summaries of antidepressant and antipsychotic drug trials. Two main scientific sources accessible to clinicians and researchers are limited by incomplete, ambiguous and inconsistent reporting. Access to complete and accurate data from clinical trials of drugs currently in use remains a pressing concern.