[Abstracts at congresses of the German Society of Urology. Trends and quality]

Abstract

Background: The congress of the German Society of Urology is the third biggest urology congress worldwide and reflects the scientific landscape of urology in Germany. In the congress abstracts, detailed data regarding study design, current trends in urologic research and the cooperation of authors are lacking. We wanted to identify factors contributing to the likelihood of an abstract being followed by a publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

Material and methods: The two congresses of the years 2002 and 2009 were exemplarily analyzed. Various aspects regarding study design and cooperations were retrieved from the abstracts and trends were determined. Subsequent publications in peer-reviewed journals were searched for in MEDLINE and potential factors influencing publication success were identified. Significance was tested for using the χ (2) and Mann-Whitney-U statistical tests.

Results: A total of 732 abstracts (2002: 352, 2009: 380) were analyzed, one third of which contained prospective, retrospective or preclinical/experimental studies. Internal (28.7 %) and national (27.6 %) cooperations were most frequent. Significant trends towards more retrospective studies (p=0.008) and national cooperations (p=0.019) were found. Of the abstracts 49.2 % (2002) and 56.3% (2009) were followed by publication in peer-reviewed journals (median 15.1 months) with a significantly higher mean impact factor in 2009 (3.4 vs. 2.1, respectively p>0.0001). Therapeutic studies and those including statistics or national cooperations were significantly more likely to be published.

Conclusion: In the future urologic research should focus on prospective studies. Many abstracts are not followed by a publication in a peer-reviewed journal. This is especially true for abstracts containing no statistics. As national collaborations are correlated with successful publication, an early national networking of young researching urologists should be promoted.