studies.limitations_and_caveats missing

[AstrorEnales]

Recently i noticed the field limitations_and_caveats of the studies table not being filled any more.

In the pipe-delimited-export from september 2021 there is: NCT02799667 -> "Early termination secondary to slow recruitment."

Which is still available on clinicaltrials.gov online: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/results/NCT02799667?view=results#limit

However, in the latest downloads and also cloud database the fields are always empty: SELECT nct_id, limitations_and_caveats FROM ctgov.studies WHERE nct_id='NCT02799667';

[micronix]

Thank you for alerting us. The location of this field in the api response might have changed when we started using the new api. We will work on a fix for this.

[AstrorEnales]

I further investigated and the field "LimitationsAndCaveats" is defined in the study structure under "MoreInfoModule", but now named "LimitationsAndCaveatsDescription".

<Struct Name="MoreInfoModule">
    <Field Name="LimitationsAndCaveatsDescription" DEDLink="https://prsinfo.clinicaltrials.gov/results_definitions.html#Result_LimitationsAndCaveats_description"/>
    [...]
</Struct>

In your code it seems to be accessed under the old name: ['FullStudiesResponse']['FullStudies'].first['Study']['ResultsSection']['MoreInfoModule']['LimitationsAndCaveats']

Nontheless, the field is still not provided by the full_studies endpoint of ClinicalTrials! https://clinicaltrials.gov/api/query/full_studies?expr=AREA%5BNCTId%5DNCT02799667&min_rnk=1&max_rnk=&fmt=json

If requested directly using the study_fields endpoint, the correct text is returned: https://clinicaltrials.gov/api/query/study_fields?expr=AREA%5BNCTId%5DNCT02799667&fields=NCTId,LimitationsAndCaveatsDescription&min_rnk=1&max_rnk=&fmt=json

Either ClinicalTrials.gov has an issue in their api themselves, or the field needs to be requested separately, which wouldn't be great.

[micronix]

Yes, it looks like that is the case, we will update to the new name, will have it running the new code tomorrow

[micronix]

Hello,

I misread what you found and yes it looks like this is not a simple fix, but clinicaltrials.gov might need to help us because this is not being returned in the full studies api endpoint. We will contact them and let you know

[micronix]

@AstrorEnales we spoke with the team at clinicaltrials.gov and we are waiting to hear back what the issue might be, we will keep you updated.