From meeting presentation to peer-review publication--a UK review

Abstract

Introduction: Annual academic surgical meetings provide a forum for the discussion of research. For the wide-spread dissemination of this information, peer-reviewed publication is required. The aim of this study was to compare the amount of presentations which go on to publication from 4 UK-based surgical meetings.

Materials and methods: We determined whether a presentation had led to a successful publication using PubMed, a median of 28 months following each meeting. We compared the ASGBI publication rate with the meetings of the Vascular Surgical Society (VSSGBI), the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland (ACPGBI) and the British Transplantation Society (BTS). We also compared the median impact factor of journals used.

Results: The ASGBI and BTS had a similar rate of presentations resulting in publication, with 35% and 36% at 2 years, respectively. The VSS had a significantly greater proportion of presentations resulting in publication (54% at 2 years; P = 0.004), whilst the ACPGBI had significant fewer (24% at 2 years; P = 0.006). There was no difference in the median impact factors of the journals used between the meetings (Kruskal Wallis P = 0.883).

Conclusions: There is a significant variation between meetings in terms of turning presentations into publications. However, the majority of abstracts have still not been fully published within 2 years of presentation at the meeting.

Figure 1

The number of oral (open) and poster (hatched) presentations at each of the 2001 annual meetings of the ASGBI, BTS, ACPGBI and VSSGBI.

Figure 2

Kaplan-Meier survival curves to show rates of publication for all presentations at each of the four meetings. Number of abstracts remaining ‘at risk’ at each time point is shown in the table.

Figure 3

Kaplan-Meier survival curves to show rates of publication for oral presentations at each of the four meetings. Number of abstracts remaining ‘at risk’ at each time point is shown in the table. Oral presentations given at the VSSGBI are significantly more likely to be published.

Figure 4

Comparison of average journal impact factor used for eventual publication of presentations from each meeting. There is no significant difference between the meetings (Kruskal-Wallis P = 0.883).