Microproduct data guideintermediate

ClinicalTrials.gov Study Records

Registered clinical study protocols, locations, recruitment states, and results for building trial finders and research-monitoring tools.

Start the guide Open official source

At a glance

Difficulty
Intermediate — some data preparation helps
Size
Small · ≤0.1 GB
Formats
JSON, CSV
Access
API or Download
API key
Not required
Provider
U.S. National Library of Medicine
Updates
Daily
Data terms
ClinicalTrials.gov terms and conditions

From source to product signal

Test a product idea in four steps

ClinicalTrials.gov contains sponsor-submitted study protocols, recruitment states, locations, and results. Start with one condition, one country, and recruiting studies. Registration does not independently verify a study's claims, and locations, contacts, and results may be missing or outdated.

1

Check the setup

  • Python 3.10 or newer
  • A notebook environment such as Jupyter or Google Colab
  • An internet connection
2

Access the data

  1. 1.Choose one condition and country and confirm the search in ClinicalTrials.gov.
  2. 2.Request only recruiting studies and a bounded page of fields from the API.
  3. 3.Preserve NCT identifiers and check the record update date before presenting availability.
Open official source
3

Run the Python example

Install the packages, then run the notebook cell.

python -m pip install pandas requests

import pandas as pd
import requests

response = requests.get(
    "https://clinicaltrials.gov/api/v2/studies",
    params={
        "query.cond": "asthma",
        "filter.overallStatus": "RECRUITING",
        "format": "json",
        "pageSize": 50,
    },
    timeout=30,
)
response.raise_for_status()
studies = pd.json_normalize(response.json()["studies"])
columns = [
    "protocolSection.identificationModule.nctId",
    "protocolSection.identificationModule.briefTitle",
    "protocolSection.statusModule.overallStatus",
]
print(studies[columns].head(20))
4

Test a useful signal

Find recruiting trials for one condition

Identify recruiting asthma studies and review whether they list usable locations.

  1. 01Retrieve a bounded page and retain each study's NCT identifier and update date.
  2. 02Count studies by recruitment state and inspect the location fields before mapping them.
  3. 03Explain why registry status, submitted details, and missing contacts require source-page confirmation.

Dataset details

U.S. National Library of Medicine is a government source. Last verified 2026-08-13. Temporal coverage: 2000-present.

Theme

Health, Food & Safety

Domains

Clinical ResearchPublic Health

Data types

Registry DataEvent Data

Tasks

Trial DiscoveryMonitoringGeographic Analysis

Geography

Global

Formats

JSONCSV

Provider

U.S. National Library of Medicine

Data terms

ClinicalTrials.gov terms and conditions