More insight into the fate of biomedical meeting abstracts: a systematic review.

Erik Von Elm,Bernhard Walder,Martin R Tramèr,Michael C Costanza

doi:10.1186/1471-2288-3-12

Erik Von Elm, Bernhard Walder + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2288-3-12

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Abstract

BackgroundIt has been estimated that about 45% of abstracts that are accepted for presentation at biomedical meetings will subsequently be published in full. The acceptance of abstracts at meetings and their fate after initial rejection are less well understood. We set out to estimate the proportion of abstracts submitted to meetings that are eventually published as full reports, and to explore factors that are associated with meeting acceptance and successful publication.MethodsStudies analysing acceptance of abstracts at biomedical meetings or their subsequent full publication were searched in MEDLINE, OLDMEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, BIOSIS, Science Citation Index Expanded, and by hand searching of bibliographies and proceedings. We estimated rates of abstract acceptance and of subsequent full publication, and identified abstract and meeting characteristics associated with acceptance and publication, using logistic regression analysis, survival-type analysis, and meta-analysis.ResultsAnalysed meetings were held between 1957 and 1999. Of 14945 abstracts that were submitted to 43 meetings, 46% were accepted. The rate of full publication was studied with 19123 abstracts that were presented at 234 meetings. Using survival-type analysis, we estimated that 27% were published after two, 41% after four, and 44% after six years. Of 2412 abstracts that were rejected at 24 meetings, 27% were published despite rejection. Factors associated with both abstract acceptance and subsequent publication were basic science and positive study outcome. Large meetings and those held outside the US were more likely to accept abstracts. s were more likely to be published subsequently if presented either orally, at small meetings, or at a US meeting. acceptance itself was strongly associated with full publication.ConclusionsAbout one third of abstracts submitted to biomedical meetings were published as full reports. Acceptance at meetings and publication were associated with specific characteristics of abstracts and meetings.

Highlights

It has been estimated that about 45% of abstracts that are accepted for presentation at biomedical meetings will subsequently be published in full
Systematic review of reports that focused on the follow-up of meeting abstracts identified some specific characteristics of the abstracts that were associated with successful publication [2,3]
Of abstracts that are submitted to biomedical meetings, only about one third is subsequently published in full

Summary

Introduction

It has been estimated that about 45% of abstracts that are accepted for presentation at biomedical meetings will subsequently be published in full. The average publication rate of abstracts was shown to be about 45% only, suggesting that more than half were not fully published after presentation at the meetings [2,3] Despite this important finding, some elements of the selection process of scientific data remained unclear. Some elements of the selection process of scientific data remained unclear It is not well understood what happens to abstracts submitted for presentation at meetings. To estimate the rate of abstracts that are submitted to biomedical meetings and, whether accepted at the meetings or not, subsequently published in full

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