Integrating Clinical Ultrasound into Screening for Cystic Fibrosis Liver Disease: Approach with Caution and Optimism.

Abstract

need to have ‘‘personal equipoise,’’ not favoring a positive outcome over a negative one (13). Studies need to be adequately powered and designed, so that a negative study is as scientifically sound as a positive one. Medical journals need to embrace negative or neutral studies just as much as the positive ones (14). Some progress on this topic has been made, for example with the American Journal of Gastroenterology recently dedicating an entire issue to studies that had no statistically significant superiority of one outcome over another (15). Finally, penalties probably need to be imposed to pharmaceutical companies who keep the less favorable results from being reported in medical journals.