 In 1993, 30 experts - medical journal editors, clinical trialists, epidemiologists, and methodologists - met in Ottawa, Canada to discuss ways of improving the reporting of randomized trials.This meeting resulted in the Standardized Reporting of Trials (SORT) statement, a 32-item checklist and flow diagram in which investigators were encouraged to report on how randomized trials were conducted.Concurrently, and independently, another group of experts, the Asilomar Working Group on Recommendations for Reporting of Clinical Trials in the Biomedical Literature, convened in California, USA, and were working on a similar mandate.