Review of the reviewer.

Reviewers can disagree substantially when evaluating the same materials. For papers submitted to an editorial board, the Editor-in-Chief can suggest compromises. However, this is not the case in the normal abstract grading procedures for large meetings. If important discrepancies arise between reviewers, a review committee may propose corrective measures. However, this is only feasible for smaller meetings with a limited number of abstract submissions. In this study, when reviewing the same abstracts, a statistically significant correlation between reviewers was present in 15 instances and absent in 13 others. It would appear that some review of the reviewer is highly desirable and may prevent publication bias.