Avoidable waste in the production and reporting of research evidence

[Extract] Without accessible and usable reports, research cannot help patients and their clinicians. In a published Personal View,1 a medical researcher with myeloma reflected on the way that the results of four randomised trials relevant to his condition had still not been published, years after preliminary findings had been presented in meeting abstracts:

“Research results should be easily accessible to people who need to make decisions about their own health…Why was I forced to make my decision knowing that information was somewhere but not available? Was the delay because the results were less exciting than expected? Or because in the evolving field of myeloma research there are now new exciting hypotheses (or drugs) to look at? How far can we tolerate the butterfly behaviour of researchers, moving on to the next flower well before the previous one has been fully exploited?”