Whatever happened to abstracts from different sections of the association for research in vision and ophthalmology?

Abstract

Purpose: The authors investigated the fate of abstracts from each ARVO section (May 1985 meeting), the overall publication percentage, and the journals in which the abstract-derived articles were published.

Methods: They performed a MEDLINE search by first author for 25 or 26 randomly selected abstracts from each section to identify those that led to full-length articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Results: Overall, 63% of abstracts led to full-length articles in peer-reviewed journals within our search period of 87 months. The publication rate of oral presentation abstracts (68%) was significantly higher than that of poster presentation abstracts (56%). A greater proportion of basic science-oriented abstracts (67%) led to publication than the clinically oriented abstracts (56%). The rate of publication was lowest for the Cornea section (40%) and highest for Physiology and Pharmacology (80%) and Biochemistry (76%). The abstract-derived articles were published in 67 different peer-reviewed journals, with 43% of the articles appearing in only five journals.

Conclusions: The fact that the majority of abstracts led to full-length articles supports ARVO's goal of a large interdisciplinary appeal with the exchange of ideas among different investigators.