Publication rates of abstracts presented at Biennial Meetings of the International Society of Arthroscopy, Knee Surgery and Orthopaedic Sports Medicine.

A study was carried out to determine the fate of abstracts presented at the Biennial Meetings of the International Society of Arthroscopy, Knee Surgery and Sports Medicine. All abstracts presented at the 1997 and 1999 Biennial Meetings of the International Society of Arthroscopy, Knee Surgery and Sports Medicine were entered into a database. A Medline search was performed in November 2003 for each abstract to determine whether a full publication resulted from the abstract. The rate of publication and the journals in which they were published were determined. The overall rate of publication from the 1997 and 1999 meetings were 34.6 and 39.3%, respectively. The most common journals for subsequent publication were Arthroscopy: The Journal of Arthroscopic and Related Surgery, American Journal of Sports Medicine, and Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology, Arthroscopy. Research presented in abstract form at scientific meetings provides an early look at ongoing research projects. These abstracts are not subjected to the full peer-review process required of publications in journals. Many of the abstracts presented at the Biennial Meetings of the International Society of Arthroscopy, Knee Surgery and Sports Medicine did not result in a full journal publication. While it is not possible to determine the reason for abstracts failing to lead to journal publications, it is possible that some of these projects did not meet the scientific scrutiny of the peer-review process required for full publication.