The availability of original data and statistics: an improvement in good publication practice.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the aspects of good publication practices, with particular reference to data analysis, and to propose an innovative initiative for improving the quality of scientific information in this field. Several committees within the scientific community provide information and publish guidelines in order to support scientists in the application of good publication practices and to improve quality in medical research. Those guidelines suggest that the possibility of verifying the original data warrants the reliability of the published results by reducing the occurrence of misconduct related to data analysis. The initiative proposed in this article is aimed at making the original data and the statistical reports available to the scientific community together with the actual paper. Such a practice is undoubtedly an improvement in the quality of publication permitting verification of the results as well as allowing for further elaboration of the same data.