Briefly, the ICMJE requires, and recommends that all medical journal editors require, registration of clinical trials in a public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication. (摘自:)简而言之,ICMJE要求并建议所有医学杂志编辑将这一要求作为考虑发表的必要条件:在募集第一位患者之时或之前,于公共临床试验注册中心注册。同一网页的另一段:The purpose of clinical trial registration is to prevent selective publication and selective reporting of research outcomes, to prevent unnecessary duplication of research effort, to help patients and the public know what trials are planned or ongoing into which they might want to enroll, and to help give ethics review boards considering approval of new studies a view of similar work and data relevant to the research they are considering. Retrospective registration, for example at the time of manuscript submission, meets none of these purposes.临床注册的目的是避免研究结果的选择性发表和选择性报道,避免研究投入的重复,帮助患者和公众了解他们想参与的试验那些已有计划或正在进行,以及帮助伦理评审委员会在考虑批准新研究时,了解与其相关的类似研究和数据。后注册,例如在稿件发表时,无法实现这些目标。所以,还是要先注册,ICMJE认可的中文注册中心是如果研究开始时还未注册,也不必紧张,因为这只是一个建议,有些水平没那么高的杂志不会要求这么多,但是若要向顶级杂志投稿会有影响。