Assessment of whether use of a professional medical writer is associated with time to publication of papers reporting phase III oncology clinical trials in two high-impact general medicine journals.

Objective: Professional medical writers assist authors with ethical and accurate publication of scientific research. We hypothesized that the support of a medical writer would enable timely publication of research and explored their association using papers reporting phase III oncology trials from 2019-2023. Given the time frame of this research, we also assessed the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic on publication volume as a secondary objective.

Methods: We searched PubMed for phase III clinical trials published in New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and the Lancet between 01/01/2019 and 12/31/2023. Publications reporting oncology trials were reviewed in full to document acknowledgement of medical writing support, data cut-off date, publication date and other key characteristics. Time from data cut-off to publication was compared for papers with and without medical writing support.

Results: Our search identified 442 papers reporting any phase III clinical trials, of which 164 (37%) reported oncology trials; 122/164 (74%) disclosed medical writing support. Mean time to publication was significantly shorter for papers disclosing medical writing support than those without (307 vs. 466 days; p < 0.0001). Median time to publication for papers with medical writing support appeared stable from 2019 to 2023. The volume (oncology and non-oncology) of phase III trials published in NEJM and the Lancet between 2019 and 2023 was lowest during 2020 to 2022 (n = 70-88) and highest in 2023 followed by 2019 (n = 110 and n = 96, respectively).

Conclusions: Medical writing support is associated with timely publication of clinical trial results, even during events that may disrupt publication development such as the Covid-19 pandemic.