In the study, which has taken two years and was posted on 26 November, 2024 to the medRxiv preprint server, a team of more than 60 researchers trawled through 50 systematic reviews published under the aegis of Cochrane, an organization renowned for its gold-standard reviews of medical evidence.
After applying a barrage of checks, the authors – many of whom are themselves editors or authors of Cochrane reviews – reported that they had "some concerns" about 25 % of the clinical trials in the reviews, and "serious concerns" about 6 % of them. The study can’t provide an overall estimate of problematic trials in Cochrane reviews because the sample selected – for the purpose of trialling integrity checks – wasn’t random or representative
A huge collaboration has confirmed growing concerns that fake or flawed research is polluting medical systematic reviews, which summarize evidence from multiple clinical trials and shape treatment guidelines worldwide.
