Lessons have been learned from atherosclerosis, where initial publications of a positive association were often followed by reports of nonreplication or refutation.
From initial publications of a single or handful of subjects, a classic paper [ 1] argued that at least 12 subjects were needed to identify an effect in functional MRI data; indeed, analyses with fewer than 20 subjects are still common, (e.g., [ 2]).
Nevertheless, the modern dialogue about international distributive justice can be largely traced to the initial publication of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice in 1971, and the prehistory of these ideas can be largely omitted in the present context.
Each initiating investigator would have control over initial publication of resulting data, but all data would eventually be available for use in a planned meta-analysis.
Forty years after the initial publication of aspirin's effects on cancer, a meta-analysis from 51 randomized trials in humans demonstrated that daily aspirin use for ≥5 years significantly reduced cancer mortality, an effect that was independent of aspirin dose [ 2].
The published data for the ILI syndrome is also updated and republished every 8 hours, but the initial publication of the weekly data does not occur until a full week (running Sunday to Saturday) is completed.
The initial publication of the Women's Health Initiative WHII) [ 3] reported a 23% decrease in invasive breast cancer incidence in patients taking oestrogen alone compared with placebo, a finding which narrowly fell short of statistical significance (hazard ratio [HR] 0.77, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.59 to 1.01).
Within two days after the initial publication of Wilhelm Röntgen's discovery of X rays in 1895, a surgeon in Scotland used X rays to observe a needle as he extracted it from the palm of an unfortunate seamstress.
In a statement to The Huffington Post after the initial publication of this story, Taylor expressed that working with Bryant on Glamour's project "only strengthened our desire to move into the space.
Owing to a dramatically decreasing frequency of enrolment after initial publication of three other trials, reporting no beneficial results, about the efficacy of the addition of irinotecan to 5-FU/FA in adjuvant treatment of colon cancer (Sargent et al, 2009; Van Cutsem et al, 2009; Ychou et al, 2009), our study group decided to stop the FOGT-4 trial after inclusion of 281 patients.
