Bringing data monitoring committee charters into the sunlight

Abstract

Clinical trials investigating novel or high risk interventions, or studying vulnerable participants, often use a data monitoring committee to oversee the progress of the trial. The data monitoring committee serves both an ethical and a scientific function, by protecting the interests of trial participants while ensuring the integrity of the trial results. A data monitoring committee charter, which typically describes the procedures by which data monitoring committees operate, contains details about the data monitoring committee’s organizational structure, membership, meeting frequency, sequential monitoring guidelines, and the overall contents of data monitoring committee reports for interim review. These charters, however, are generally not reviewed by outside entities and are rarely publicly available. The result is that a key component of trial oversight remains in the dark. We recommend that ClinicalTrials.gov modify its system to allow uploading of data monitoring committee charters, as is already possible for other important study documents and that clinical trialists take advantage of this opportunity to voluntarily upload the data monitoring committee charter for trials that have one. The resulting cache of publicly available data monitoring committee charters should provide important insights for those interested in a particular trial, as well as for meta-researchers who wish to understand and potentially improve how this important component of trial oversight is actually being applied.