Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis at Gastroenterology Conferences From 2010 to 2016: Prevalence, Origin and Association of U.S. News & World Report

Abstract

Introduction: Medical conferences are known to be a prime source of continued learning and knowledge sharing among the medical community. The quantity and importance of systematic review and meta-analysis (SRMA) has been reported to be increasing in the medical field, but has not been reviewed in the gastroenterology (GI) conference world. We aimed to assess the prevalence of SRMA from 2010 to 2016 at common GI conferences, their country of origin, and if there was an association between the United States News & World Report (USNWR) and increased abstract prevalence. Methods: We used the search term of “systematic review” (SR) and “meta-analysis” (MA) on the Digestive Disease Week (DDW), American College of Gastroenterology (ACG), American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD), and Advances in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (AIBD) databases for conference abstracts from 2010 to 2016. Two reviewers performed the search and assessed which abstracts were SR or MA or SRMA and extracted first and last author institution names and nationality from 2011 to 2016. We used the USNWR to tier institutions in categories of 25 for the top 150 GI/GI surgery scores to see if this predicted increased prevalence of conference abstracts. Results: Total SR, MA, SRMA per year was calculated for DDW (2010 - 2016: 53, 72, 84, 100, 90, 124, 170), ACG (2010 - 2016: 20, 10, 34, 45, 52, 72, 81), AASLD (2010 - 2016: 11, 14, 34, 22, 23, 18, 25), and AIBD (2015 - 2016: 5, 10). We found a linear increase in publication over the years (Figure 1). From 2011-2016, 69.4% (753/1085) of these had a first author and 66% (716/1085) had a senior author from the US. There was an increasing trend of US first authors when compared to international based first authors over time, accounting for the increase of abstracts (Figure 2). The top 150 institutions in the USNWR by first author contributed to 44.9% (333/741) of abstracts and 46.5% (328/706) by senior author. Contribution of abstracts by senior/first author tier were as follows: 1st tier: 201/185, 2nd tier: 56/60, 3rd tier: 28/33, 4th tier: 14/19, 5th tier: 17/22, 6th tier: 12/14.The top 25 senior author hospitals published 74 more abstracts than the remaining 125 hospitals.FigureFigureConclusion: Overall, there is an increasing trend of SRMA abstracts at GI conferences since 2010. US first authors have majorly contributed to the increasing prevalence. The USNWR can predict institutional representations of SRMA at GI conferences.