CT.gov Rule-Era Reporting Gap
2026-03-29 | full-registry ct.gov audit | plots, figures, and e156 bundle
Series
Rule-Era Project

Did CT.gov reporting actually improve across rule eras?

A standalone public project on pre-FDAAA, FDAAA, and later completion cohorts, showing how reporting debt changed across policy eras.

FDAAA era 67.1%
Recent era 77.0%
Ghosts 46.7%
Visible 10.8%

Project

This page treats policy landmarks as analytic eras rather than historical footnotes. The question is whether later eligible cohorts actually look cleaner once enough time has passed.

On registry-visible measures, the recent eligible era looks worse than the FDAAA 801 era.

Completion-era comparison

A standalone E156 project comparing older CT.gov completion cohorts across pre-FDAAA, FDAAA, and later policy eras.

FDAAA era
67.1%
2-year no-results
Recent era
77.0%
2-year no-results
Recent ghosts
46.7%
Neither visible
Recent visible
10.8%
Results plus publication
No-results by era
RULE ERAS2-year no-results rate across completion erasPre-FDAAA 801 (2000-2007)87.7%FDAAA 801 Era (2008-2016)67.1%Final Rule Era (2017-2020)73.9%Recent Eligible Era (2021-2024)77.0%
The later eligible era does not look cleaner on the main no-results metric.
The comparison is anchored to completion eras because reporting rules operate against the completion clock, not just the registration date.
Read Across Projects

Across The Series

The split projects are meant to be read together because each isolates a different dimension of registry opacity rather than forcing every question into one leaderboard.

Industry
CT.gov Industry Disclosure Gap

Industry-focused missing-results stock, sponsor backlogs, and structural sparsity inside CT.gov.

Sponsor Classes
CT.gov Sponsor-Class Hiddenness

Sponsor-class comparisons on rate, stock, and structural hiddenness rather than one flattened ranking.

Phases
CT.gov Phase Reporting Gap

Phase-by-phase disclosure gaps showing how silence changes along the development pathway.

Structural
CT.gov Structural Missingness

Field-level missingness across publication links, IPD statements, descriptions, and locations.

Visibility
CT.gov Evidence Visibility Gap

Results-plus-publication visibility states showing how many older trials are fully visible, partly visible, or ghosted.

Cohorts
CT.gov Completion Cohort Debt

Completion-era reporting debt showing how older eligible cohorts drift on no-results and ghost-protocol rates.

Conditions
CT.gov Condition Hiddenness Map

Keyword-classified therapeutic-area hiddenness mapping across common condition families.

Concentration
CT.gov Sponsor Backlog Concentration

Concentration and inequality analysis showing how much unresolved stock sits inside a thin sponsor slice.

PubMed Audit
CT.gov Publication Undercount Audit

Sample-based external PubMed NCT audit testing how often CT.gov no-link records hide an external paper trail.

Oncology
CT.gov Oncology Hiddenness

Oncology-specific CT.gov hiddenness showing where cancer-trial stock, phases, and sponsors still go quiet.

Cardiovascular
CT.gov Cardiovascular Hiddenness

Cardiovascular CT.gov hiddenness showing how heart and vascular studies remain quiet across major phases and sponsors.

Metabolic
CT.gov Metabolic Hiddenness

Metabolic CT.gov hiddenness across obesity, diabetes, and related trial portfolios with large late-phase and NA stock.