Pilot trials: to publish or not to publish?
Science works best when it’s open and transparent. Researchers and journal publishers are increasingly encouraged to drive forward initiatives to improve the transparency and reproducibility of scientific results. This is particularly true in the case of how best to report the findings of clinical trials. These large studies often have direct public health implications. However the size and complexity of many clinical trials can leave room for controversies about the best way to report their results.
One on-going debate is whether to report the results of clinical trial pilot studies. Pilot studies, sometimes called vanguard or feasibility studies, are early phase studies designed to evaluate the design and conduct of a projected full scale clinical trial. Typically conducted separately from …

