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.