Redundant Publication of Clinical Trials on Herpetic Keratitis

PurposeTo examine reported clinical trials on herpes simplex virus epithelial keratitis as a case study for the configuration and possible motives of overlapping publications in the ophthalmic literature.DesignCross-sectional bibliometric survey.MethodsOne hundred and forty-four reports of 98 randomized clinical trials that formed the framework for a systematic review on dendritic and geographic keratitis were assembled by electronic and manual searching of biomedical journals and transactions, excluding meeting abstracts. Overlapping reports were identified by comparing methods and results. Main articles giving the most detailed results among overlapping reports were contrasted with trial reports without duplication. Annual citation rates since publication were estimated from the number of times each report was cited by subsequent scientific articles indexed in an online citation database.ResultsSixty-one articles were published once, while 83 articles overlapped in 23 clusters, of which 14 (50%) lacked bibliographic cross-reference. Of 55 secondary reports, 34 (62%) had a smaller sample size than their corresponding main report. Secondary articles were less likely to appear in an ophthalmological publication than main reports (P < .001) and were later cited less often (P = .01). Compared to trial reports published once, main articles with an overlapping report had a significantly higher citation rate (P = .04).ConclusionOverlapping publications of therapeutic trials on herpetic keratitis often had undisclosed or fragmentary interconnections. Subsequent authors cited articles having an overlapping report more often than trials published once.