The fate of abstracts presented at annual meetings of the american urogynecologic society from 2007 to 2008.

OBJECTIVES

The purpose of this study was to determine the publication rate of full-text articles after the presentation of abstracts at consecutive annual meetings of the American Urogynecologic Society (AUGS) over a 2-year period.

METHODS

Using abstract books published by the Journal of Pelvic Medicine and Surgery, we obtained the text of all abstracts presented at the 2007 and 2008 AUGS annual meetings. A literature search was performed in the US National Library of Medicine to identify the peer-reviewed publications arising from each of those abstracts and to calculate the full-text publication rate and the mean duration from presentation to publication.

RESULTS

The overall full-text publication rate was 56% (239/438 publications). The mean time from presentation to publication was 15.7 months. The published articles appeared in 49 peer-reviewed journals, with notable distribution in the International Urogynecology Journal (27%), American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (26%), and Obstetrics and Gynecology (10%). Oral presentations (85%) were more likely than posters (71%) to have first authors with university affiliations (P = 0.002). The greater the number of abstract authors, the more likely that the article was to be published (P = 0.0059). The odds of an oral presentation being published were 7 times the odds of a poster being published (odds ratio, 6.99; P < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

Because not all presentations are published, it is questionable whether it is acceptable to cite AUGS abstracts that have not passed a journal's peer review process and to implement their results in clinical practice.