Table 2.

Number of registered clinical studies worldwide and those sponsored by China, annually and cumulatively to December 2018

Year	Annual registrations sponsored by China				Global annual registrations	Cumulative registrations sponsored by China				Global cumulative registrations
	ChiCTR	ClinicalTrials.gov	Other registries	Total		ChiCTR	ClinicalTrials.gov	Other registries	Total
Pre-2009	306	348	50	704	91 384	306	348	50	704	91 384
2009	304	303	22	629	24 843	610	651	72	1333	116 227
2010	404	352	30	786	26 886	1014	1003	102	2119	143 113
2011	655	504	46	1205	28 234	1669	1507	148	3324	171 347
2012	1035	693	30	1758	32 148	2704	2200	178	5082	203 495
2013	1078	955	44	2077	33 550	3782	3155	222	7159	237 045
2014	1548	1118	22	2688	37 898	5330	4273	244	9847	274 943
2015	1742	1456	35	3233	41 215	7072	5729	279	13 080	316 158
2016	2489	2063	44	4596	47 412	9561	7792	323	17 676	363 570
2017	3835	2331	53	6219	53 061	13 396	10 123	376	23 895	416 631
2018	6087	2505	70	8662	61 630	19 483	12 628	446	32 557	478 261
Total	Registrations by China 2009–2018				478 261	Proportion of registrations by China			100%
	19 177	12 280	396	31 853		60%	39%	1%		478 261

Data note: In the 20 405 ChiCTR-retrieved registration entries on ICTRP up to 2018, 372 redundant entries and 413 missing entries were found when compared with the retrieval results on the ChiCTR website. The redundant entries were deleted, and the missing entries were supplemented by individual records from the ChiCTR website. Furthermore, there were 29 registration entries with the wrong registration year in 1990 and one registered study with the wrong registration date beyond the actual date. The registration year was determined according to ‘Study Execute Time’, ‘Date of Last Refreshed on’ and ‘Registration Status’. The static copy of the AACT database for ClinicalTrials.gov was downloaded, and the registration date was based on the data field of the ‘study first posted date’. After removing 811 trials with a study title of ‘trials of device that is not approved or cleared by the US FDA’, 292 582 studies registered on ClinicalTrials.gov up to 2018 were included. Duplicate registration entries were only excluded for registrations primarily sponsored by China.

ChiCTR, Chinese Clinical Trial Registry; ISRCTN, International standard randomised controlled trial number.