Table 5.

 Reasons for discontinuation of 81/395 surgical randomised controlled trials

Reason for non-completion	No (%)
Insufficient/poor patient recruitment	36 (44)
Lack of funding to continue trial	8 (10)
Trial terminated early owing to negative results/futility	8 (10)
Withdrawal of trial management or clinical investigators	7 (9)
Trial administration or conduct problems	4 (5)
Trial lost clinical relevance	4 (5)
Trial product/device/drug withdrawn from market	3 (4)
Trial termination based on safety or toxicity data	2 (2)
Trial terminated early owing to positive results	1 (1)
Missing	8 (10)

14/81 did not disclose reason for termination on ClinicalTrials.gov; emails were identified and sent to 10/14 authors, with no contact available for remaining 4/14.