Publication outcome of abstracts submitted to the American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting.

Michael Mimouni,Francis B Mimouni,Gilad Allon,Hanan Badarni,Gil Amarilyo,Eytan Z Blumenthal,Liron Berkovitz,Hamza Abualhasan,Kamal Imtanis,Mark Krauthammer

doi:10.5195/jmla.2018.314

Abstract

Objectives submitted to meetings are subject to less rigorous peer review than full-text manuscripts. This study aimed to explore the publication outcome of abstracts presented at the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) annual meeting.Methodss presented at the 2008 AAO meeting were analyzed. Each presented abstract was sought via PubMed to identify if it had been published as a full-text manuscript. The publication outcome, journal impact factor (IF), and time to publication were recorded.ResultsA total of 690 abstracts were reviewed, of which 39.1% were subsequently published. They were published in journals with a median IF of 2.9 (range 0–7.2) and a median publication time of 426 days (range 0–2,133 days). A quarter were published in the journal Ophthalmology, with a shorter time to publication (median 282 vs. 534 days, p=0.003). Oral presentations were more likely to be published than poster presentations (57.8% vs. 35.9%, p<0.001) and in journals with higher IFs (3.2 vs. 2.8, p=0.02). s describing rare diseases had higher publication rates (49.4% vs. 38.0%, p=0.04) and were published in higher IF journals (3.7 vs. 2.9, p=0.03), within a shorter period of time (358 vs. 428 days, p=0.03). In multivariate analysis, affiliation with an institute located in the United States (p=0.002), abstracts describing rare diseases (p=0.03), and funded studies (p=0.03) were associated with publication in higher IF journals.ConclusionsAlmost 40% of abstracts were published. Factors that correlated with publication in journals with higher IF were a focus on rare diseases, affiliation with a US institute, and funding.

Highlights

Scientific meetings are a platform for sharing developments in medical research
A rare disease was defined using the definitions specified in the Rare Disease Act of 2002
The overall publication rate of 39.1% was comparable to the reported publication rates of scientific meetings in other fields of medicine [2, 3, 7, 8] and the Canadian Ophthalmological Society annual meeting (45.7%) [9], while higher than that of the Royal College of Ophthalmologist annual congress (26.6%) [10]

Summary

Introduction

Scientific meetings are a platform for sharing developments in medical research. These meetings allow investigators to present current research data and findings, to exchange ideas, and to initiate future collaboration. Presentation of a study at a scientific conference is a method for rapidly disseminating research information that otherwise would take months or even years until it is made available to the colleagues through peer-reviewed journals [1]. In some cases thousands, of abstracts are submitted to each scientific meeting. A subset is accepted as an oral presentation, a printed poster, or an electronic poster. Abstracts that are deemed more original, interesting, and/or of higher scientific value are presented orally, whereas the remaining accepted abstracts are presented as posters

Methods

Results

Conclusion