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Publication rate of abstracts presented at the 2010 Canadian Ophthalmological Society Annual Meeting
Publication rate of abstracts presented at the 2010 Canadian Ophthalmological Society Annual Meeting Alfred Basilious, MD, Ana Maria Benavides Vargas, MD, Yvonne M. Buys, MD ABSTRACT ● Objective: To evaluate the publication rate of submitted abstracts accepted for presentation at the 2010 Canadian Ophthalmological Society (COS) Annual Meeting in peer-reviewed journals. Design: A retrospective analysis and literature search of abstracts presented at the 2010 COS Annual Meeting. Methods: Abstracts accepted as an oral presentation or poster from the 2010 COS Annual Meeting were tabulated by type of presentation (oral vs poster), subspecialty, study design, number of authors, and principal investigator’s institution. A PubMed search was conducted for each abstract by key word, first author, and last author. The year of publication, journal, and impact factor were recorded for identified publications. Publication rate was calculated by type of presentation, subspecialty, study design, number of authors, and institution. Results: A total of 175 abstracts were presented at the 2010 COS Annual Meeting. There were 105 oral (60%) and 70 poster (40%) presentations. The overall publication rate was 45.7%; 49.5% for oral presentations and 40.0% for posters. Cornea (57.6%) and public health (54.5%) had the highest publication rates of all subspecialties. Randomized control trials (71.4%) and cohort studies (70.0%) had higher publication rates than other study designs. Overall, 28.8% of abstracts were published in the Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology. The average impact factor of all publications was 2.73. Conclusion: Of abstracts presented at the 2010 COS Annual Meeting, 45.7% were published within 5 years after the conference. This publication rate is within the upper end of previously reported meeting publication rates for medical societies.
Annual research meetings represent an important opportunity for physicians and investigators to share their study results. Publication in a peer-reviewed journal is the next step in both dissemination of results and perhaps provides a measure of research quality as unpublished work does not become a part of the accessible scientific literature. Publication rate can be seen as an important metric of the scientific quality of a conference. Publication rates have been reported for several society meetings, including the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (51.7%),1 American Academy of Clinical Chemistry (38%),2 the American Society of Clinical Oncology (39%),3 the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society (32%),4 and the Annual Congress of the European Society for Surgical Research (42%)4 (Table 1). Abstract publication rate varies with study design,3,5 type of presentation,4,6 and subspecialty.1 To our knowledge, the publication rate of submitted abstracts accepted at the Canadian Ophthalmological Society (COS) Annual Meeting has not previously been investigated. The aim of this study was to evaluate the publication rate of abstracts presented at the 2010 COS Annual Meeting in peer-reviewed journals.
METHODS In the 2010 COS Annual Meeting, 175 abstracts were accepted as either oral or poster presentations. A full list of
abstracts was obtained from the COS web site.7 Each abstract included type of presentation (oral vs poster), subspecialty categorization, title, and authors. Data from this document were tabulated into Excel. For each abstract, the type of presentation, title, subspecialty, study design, first and last authors’ names, number of authors, and principal investigator’s institution were recorded. A PubMed search was conducted from 1 January 2008 to 1 May 2016 for each abstract with the following format: first author [Author] AND last author [Author] AND key word [Title/Abstract]. For example, for the abstract titled “A Comparison of Standard Automated Perimetry on the Heidelberg Edge Perimeter and the Humphrey Field Analyzer” by John G. Flanagan, Yuan-Hao Ho, and Deborah Goren, the following search was used: Flanagan [Author] AND Goren [Author] AND Standard Automated Perimetry [Title/Abstract]. If no publication was found, a second search was conducted with a different key word and either author: (first author [Author] OR last author [Author]) AND key word [Title/Abstract]. If a resulting publication was found, it was reviewed to ensure that it had the same content as the abstract submitted to the COS. For published manuscripts, the year of publication, journal, and impact factor were recorded. The most recently published impact factor for the journal was used. The total publication rate was calculated in addition to the publication rate by type of presentation, subspecialty,
& 2016 Canadian Ophthalmological Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcjo.2016.11.033 ISSN 0008-4182/16 CAN J OPHTHALMOL — VOL. ], NO. ], ] 2016
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Publication rate of abstracts presented at 2010 COS meeting—Basilious et al. Table 1—Reported meeting publication rates from 2014 to 2016 (ranked by publication rate). Rank
Meeting
1 American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine14 2 Cervical Spine Research Society4 3 Society of Gynecologic Surgeons12 4 Obstetrical and Gynecologic Society5 5 Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology1 6 Canadian Society of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery15 7 American Society for Surgery of the Hand16 8 Canadian Ophthalmological Society17 9 Society of General Internal Medicine9 10 European Society for Surgical Research6 11 German Society of Neurosurgery17 12 American Society of Clinical Oncology3 13 American Association for Clinical Chemistry2 14 Singapore Orthopedic Association18 15 Cervical Spine Research Society Europe19 16 European Congress on Osteoporosis, Osteoarthritis and Musculo-Skeletal Diseases8 17 Italian Society of Hygiene and Public Health13 18 American Academy of Optometry20 19 American Transplant Congress21 Average publication rate
study design, institution, and number of authors. The number of abstracts published was calculated per year, and the average time to publication in years was calculated for oral and poster presentations. The average journal impact factor for published oral and poster presentations was also calculated. Data were expressed primarily as proportions and means. Pearson correlation between publication type and number of authors and impact factor was analyzed.
RESULTS A total of 175 abstracts were presented at the 2010 COS Annual Meeting. Of these, 105 (60.0%) were oral presentations and 70 (40.0%) were poster presentations. As of 1 May 2016, 80 abstracts were published, giving an overall publication rate of 45.7%. The publication rate of oral presentations (49.5%) was greater than that of poster presentations (40.0%). Figure 1 shows the number of publications per year. The majority of the publications were within 2 years of the meeting; 40 (50%) by 2011 and 61 (76.3%) by 2012. Interestingly, 2 abstracts were published in 2009, before the meeting, which is against the policy for submitting an abstract. We did not find any publications in 2016 by the end of our search date, 1 May 2016. Publicaon Rate and Percent of Abstracts by Year
Number of publicaons
Overall Publication Rate (%)
2006–2010 2007–2011 2004–2012 2005 2010 2006–2010 2000–2010 2010 2009 2008–2011 2012 2009–2011 2011 2007–2013 2007–2012 2011 2005–2007 2006–2013 2009
67.10 65.70 55.70 54.00 51.70 50.50 49.00 45.70 44.00 42.00 40.40 39.00 38.00 35.80 32.00 30.90 23.50 21.00 12.60 41.49%
A total of 10 subspecialties were represented at the conference. Figure 2 shows the proportion of abstracts per subspecialty and the publication rate per subspecialty. Retina (42; 24.0%) and cornea (33; 18.8%) had the greatest number of total abstracts presented. Only 1 abstract was presented under vision rehab and uveitis; therefore, publication rates for these subspecialties were not calculated. The 1 vision rehab abstract was published, whereas the uveitis abstract was not. The publication rate varied by subspecialty from 36.0% to 57.6%. Cornea (57.6%) and public health (54.5%) had the highest publication rates, whereas cataract (36.0%) and oculoplastics (38.5%) were lowest. There was no correlation between the percentage of abstracts presented by a subspecialty and that subspecialty’s publication rate (r ¼ 0.033, p ¼ 0.928). There were a variety of study designs, including (from most to least frequent) case series, chart review, crosssectional observational, cross-sectional comparison, case report, cross-sectional survey, basic science, cohort study, case–control, randomized clinical trial, cost analysis, and meta-analysis. There was only 1 meta-analysis and 2 cost analyses, so publication rates for these study designs were Publicaon Rate and Percent of Abstracts by Subspecialty Rena Cornea
18
Cataract
16 14
Pediatrics
12
Glaucoma
10
Oculoplascs
8
Public Health
6
Neuro-ophthalmology
4
0%
2
10%
20% % of abstracts
0 2009
2010
2011
2012 posters
2013
2014
CAN J OPHTHALMOL — VOL. ], NO. ], ] 2016
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
publicaon rate
2015
oral
Fig. 1 — The number of abstracts (oral vs poster) published each year.
2
Meeting Years
Fig. 2 — Publication rate and percent of abstracts by subspecialty for those subspecialties presenting 5 or more abstracts. Uveitis and vision rehab are not included as each presented 1 abstract.
Publication rate of abstracts presented at 2010 COS meeting—Basilious et al. Publicaon Rate and Number of Authors
Publicaon Rate and Percent of Abstracts by Study Design 0.9
case series chart review cross-seconal observaonal cross-seconal comparison case report basic science cross-seconal survey cohort study randomized clinical trial case-control
Publicaon Rate
0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0
0%
10%
20%
% of abstracts
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
1 (n=12)
2 (n=31)
3 (n=35)
4 (n=28)
5 (n=21)
6 (n=14)
7 (n=17)
≥8 (n=17)
Number of Authors
publicaon rate
Fig. 3 — Publication rate and percent of abstracts by study design.
Fig. 5 — Publication rate by number of authors. Articles with Z8 authors are grouped together.
not calculated. The 1 meta-analysis was not published, whereas both cost analyses were published. Figure 3 shows the publication rate by study design. Randomized control trials (71.4%) and cohort studies (70.0%) had the highest publication rates, whereas cross-sectional observational studies (30.4%) and case reports (33.3%) had the lowest publication rates. A total of 42 institutions were represented at the conference. The majority of the abstracts (80.6%) were from Canadian universities. A total of 23 (13.1%) were from non-Canadian institutions and 11 (6.3%) from independent nonacademic Canadian institutions (Fig. 4). Figure 4 shows the breakdown of number of abstracts and publication rate by institution. The University of Toronto (46; 26.3%) and Western University (19; 10.9%) presented the most abstracts. Queen’s University (60.0%) and the University of Toronto (58.7%) had the highest publication rates, whereas McGill (16.7%) and McMaster (28.6%) had the lowest. There was no correlation between the percentage of abstracts presented from an institution and that institution’s publication rate (r ¼ 0.264, p ¼ 0.407). The publication rate of Canadian academic abstracts (46.8%) was higher than that of Canadian independent abstracts (36.4%). The publication rate for non-Canadian institutions was 43.5%. The total number of authors on an abstract ranged from 1 to 20. Abstracts with 6 authors had the highest publication rate (78.6%), whereas abstracts with 1 author had the lowest publication rate (25.0%) (Fig. 5). There
was a significant correlation between the number of authors and publication rate for abstracts with 1 to 4 authors (r ¼ 0.987, p ¼ 0.01). However, this correlation did not hold for abstracts with 5 or more authors. Abstracts presented at the 2010 COS Annual Meeting were published in 31 different journals. The most highly represented journals included the Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology (22; 29.0%) and the Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (7; 10.0%). The remaining journals had 4 or fewer publications each (Table 2). Of the abstracts published in the Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology, 22 were chart reviews, 6 cross-sectional surveys, 3 cross-sectional observational, 3 cross-sectional comparisons, 2 cohort studies, 2 case reports, 2 case series, and 1 case–control. The average impact factor of all journals represented was 2.73. There was no difference in the average impact factor for published oral (2.74) versus poster (2.72) presentations.
Publicaon Rate and Percent of Abstracts by Instuon University of Toronto Other Canadian univerises Foreign Western University Université de Montréal McGill Canadian Independent University of Brish Columbia McMaster Queens University of Calgary Dalhousie University 0
0.1
0.2
% of abstracts
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
publicaon rate
Fig. 4 — Publication rate and percent of abstracts by institution. Canadian universities presenting less than 5 abstracts were grouped into “other Canadian universities.” Institutions are ordered by percentage of abstracts.
DISCUSSION The COS Annual Meeting was first held in 1937. It is the largest ophthalmological conference in Canada. In addition to invited speakers, researchers can submit abstracts for consideration for presentation. These abstracts are reviewed by a committee to determine which are of sufficient quality and interest to be accepted for presentation at the meeting and the format for presentation, either oral or poster. The results of this study indicate that the COS Annual Meeting presents high-quality research that has a high likelihood of publication in peer-reviewed journals with an overall publication rate of 45.7% from the 2010 Annual Meeting. Table 1 compares publication rates from other meetings. Of the 19 reported meeting publication rates, the rate of COS ranked as the eighth highest. The average publication rate for all reviewed conferences was 42.03%, which was lower than that of the COS. The reported time from conference presentation to publication ranged from 1.5 to 1.75 years, which is similar to that of published abstracts at COS (1.81 years). Although much of the research from the conference was published in the Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology, a diverse range of journals was represented. CAN J OPHTHALMOL — VOL. ], NO. ], ] 2016
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Publication rate of abstracts presented at 2010 COS meeting—Basilious et al. Table 2—List of journals in which abstracts presented at the COS were published. Journal Can J Ophthalmol J Cataract Refract Surg Br J Ophthalmol J AAPOS J Glaucoma Am J Ophthalmol Cornea Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci J Refract Surg Ophthalmology Curr Eye Res Surv Ophthalmol Am J Gastroenterol Am Orthopt J Arch Ophthalmol Clin Ophthalmol Digit J Ophthalmol Exp Eye Res Eye (Lond) Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol J Neuroophthalmol J Optom JAMA Ophthalmology Mol Cell Proteomics Mol Vis Ophthal Plast Reconstr Surg Orbit Retina Sci Transl Med Telemed J E Health Tissue Eng Part A Total
Number of Publications
% of Publications
23 7 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 80
28.75 8.75 5 5 5 3.75 3.75 3.75 3.75 3.75 2.5 2.5 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 100
COS, Canadian Ophthalmological Society. The number of publications and the percentage of all publications are shown for each journal.
As with other previously reported meeting publication rates, oral abstracts had a higher publication rate than poster presentations, 49.5% versus 40.0%, respectively. This provides some validation of the factors utilized by the selection committee at the COS to award oral presentations, as these seem more likely to be published. However, we found that both oral and poster presentations were published in journals with similar impact factors. This suggests that even though poster abstracts were less likely to be published, those that were published had quality comparable to that of published oral abstracts. In contrast to this study, the majority of previously reported meeting publication rates have demonstrated higher impact factors among published oral presentations than poster presentations.6,8 Retina represented the largest percentage of accepted meeting abstracts (24.0%) followed by cornea (18.9%), cataract (14.3%), pediatrics (13.0%), and glaucoma (12.0%). Publication rate was found to vary by subspecialty, with cornea (57.6%) having the highest publication rate, followed by public health (54.5%) and glaucoma (52.4%). The publication rate for retina (40.5%) was below the meeting average; however, when considering the number of meeting abstracts, the greatest number of
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publications were in cornea (19), followed by retina (17), glaucoma (11), pediatrics (10), and cataract (9). These results are similar to those of a study by Kumar et al. in 2011, which reported that the retina made up the greatest proportion of ophthalmology publications, followed by cornea, glaucoma, and cataract.9 Randomized clinical trials presented at the COS meeting had the highest publication rate (71.4%). This is similar to the reported publication rate of randomized clinical trials presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (75.0%).3 In contrast, case reports (33.3%) had a particularly low publication rate despite representing 10.3% of all abstracts. The most common methodology presented was case series (21.7% of all abstracts), which had a publication rate close to average (47.4%). A recent study exploring ophthalmology publications of Canadian ophthalmology departments between 2005 and 2009 demonstrated that 40.1% of published work was case reports/case series, which is similar to their representation at COS (32%).9 Randomized control trials comprised 3.3% of ophthalmology publications, also matching their proportion at COS (4.0%).9 The University of Toronto represented the institution with the largest percentage of abstracts (26.3%) and the second highest publication rate (58.7%). In contrast, Queens University had the highest publication rate (60.0%) but only presented 5 of the abstracts (2.9%). Between 2005 and 2009 the University of Toronto produced the highest percentage of ophthalmology publications (29.3%), followed by University of British Columbia (UBC; 18.7%) and McGill (15.7%).10 However, UBC (7; 4.0%) and McGill (12; 6.9%) were relatively under-represented at the 2010 COS Annual Meeting. The 2010 meeting was held in Quebec, which likely influenced the number of submissions from UBC. Another important factor when considering institution productivity is funding. The University of Montreal, McGill, University of Toronto, and Western University received the largest amount of vision-related funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research between 2001 and 2010 and from federal grants between 2006 and 2010.11 These 4 universities were also the top abstract contributors at the 2010 COS Annual Meeting. Overall, Canadian academic institutions presenting at the 2010 COS Annual Meeting were found to have a higher publication rate than independent institutions, as has been similarly demonstrated at other conferences.2,12,13
LIMITATIONS In this study we examined only publication rates for 1 year of the COS Annual Meeting. Publication rates may vary from year to year. We chose to study the results from the 2010 meeting to allow a reasonable time for publication. It is possible that some abstracts are yet to be published, and so the publication rate may increase. It is
Publication rate of abstracts presented at 2010 COS meeting—Basilious et al. also possible that a few publications of conference abstracts were not found in the literature search if they were not easily accessible online, were not published in English, or had different authors or key words from the presented abstract. However, it is unlikely that this represents a significant number of publications. Finally, we recorded the institution of a publication based on the last author’s institution. However, some studies were multicentred, and it is possible that the last author may not be the principal author. Again, this likely represents a small number of publications, and we were consistent in our institution assignment process so as not to induce any bias. The results by institution also are likely to be affected by meeting location, as longer travel distances may influence a presenter’s willingness to submit an abstract and attend the meeting.
CONCLUSIONS We found a competitive 5-year publication rate of abstracts presented at the 2010 COS Annual Meeting. This supports the overall high quality of research presented at this meeting. In addition, we demonstrated that oral abstracts have a higher publication rate than poster presentations. Finally, publication rate varied widely by institution, subspecialty, and number of authors.
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS Y.M.B. and A.B. conceived and designed the study. A. B. and A.V. collected data and performed data analysis. A. B. and Y.M.B. wrote the manuscript and A.V. critically reviewed the manuscript. REFERENCES 1. Villani E, Carducci FT, Vujosevic S, Nucci P. The fate of research abstracts presented at the ARVO annual meeting. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2016;57:5557. 2. Greene DN, Wilson AR, Bailey NM, Schmidt RL. Publication outcome of abstracts presented at the AACC annual meeting. Clin Chim Acta Int J Clin Chem. 2016;456:49-55. 3. Massey PR, Wang R, Prasad V, Bates SE, Fojo T. Assessing the eventual publication of clinical trial abstracts submitted to a large annual oncology meeting. Oncologist. 2016;21:261-8. 4. Janssen T, Bartels R, Lind B, Villas Tome C, Vleggeert-Lankamp CLA. Publication rate of paper and podium presentations from the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society Annual Meeting. Eur Spine J. 2016;25:2311-6. 5. Muffly TM, Webster K, Conageski C, Guiahi M. Predictors of manuscript publication: a review of Obstetrics and Gynecology Society meeting abstracts. Female Pelvic Med Reconstr Surg. 2016;22:83-7. 6. Meral UM, Alakus U, Urkan M, et al. Publication rate of abstracts presented at the Annual Congress of the European Society for Surgical Research during 2008–2011. Eur Surg Res. 2016;56:132-40. 7. Canadian Ophthalmological Society. Abstracts, 2010 Annual Meeting Québec City. 2010. 〈http://www.cos-sco.ca/annualmeeting/2010/pro gram/COS2010AbstractBook.pdf〉 accessed 17 May 2016.
8. Rabenda V, Bruyère O, Cooper C, et al. Publication outcomes of the abstracts presented at the 2011 European Congress on Osteoporosis, Osteoarthritis and Musculo-Skeletal Diseases (ECCEOIOF11): A position paper of the European Society for Clinical and Economical Aspects of Osteoporosis, Osteoarthritis and MusculoSkeletal Diseases (ESCEO) and the International Osteoporosis and Other Skeletal Diseases Foundation (IOF). Arch Osteoporos. 2015;10:11. 9. Kumar A, Cheeseman R, Durnian JM. Subspecialization of the ophthalmic literature: a review of the publishing trends of the top general, clinical ophthalmic journals. Ophthalmology. 2011;118:1211-4. 10. Micieli A, Micieli JA, Smith AF. Analysis of the publication volume of Canadian ophthalmology departments from 2005 to 2009: a systematic review of the literature. Can J Ophthalmol. 2011;46: 66-71. 11. Schlenker MB, Manalo E, Wong AMF. Research productivity of Canadian ophthalmology departments in top 10 ophthalmology and vision science journals from 2001 to 2010. Can J Ophthalmol. 2013;48:46-55. 12. Propst K, O’Sullivan D, Tulikangas P. Quality evaluation of abstracts presented at the Society of Gynecologic Surgeons annual scientific meeting. J Minim Invasive Gynecol. 2015;22:1045-8. 13. Castaldi S, Giacometti M, Toigo W, Bert F, Siliquini R. Analysis of full-text publication and publishing predictors of abstracts presented at an Italian public health meeting (2005–2007). BMC Res Notes. 2015;8:492. 14. Kinsella SD, Menge TJ, Anderson AF, Spindler KP. Publication rates of podium versus poster presentations at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine meetings: 2006–2010. Am J Sports Med. 2015;43:1255-9. 15. Ogilvie LN, Pauwels J, Chadha NK, Kozak FK. Publication rate of abstracts presented at the Canadian Society of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery annual meetings: a five year study 2006–2010. J Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2014;43:51. 16. Theman TA, Labow BI, Taghinia A. Discrepancies between meeting abstracts and subsequent full text publications in hand surgery. J Hand Surg. 2014;39:1585-90. e3. 17. Czorlich P, Regelsberger J, Meixensberger J, Westphal M, Eicker SO. From abstract to publication in a peer-reviewed journal: evaluation of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the German Society of Neurosurgery. J Neurol Surg Part Cent Eur Neurosurg. 2016;77:46-51. 18. Daruwalla ZJ, Huq SS, Wong KL, Nee PY, Murphy DP. ‘Publish or perish’—presentations at annual national orthopaedic meetings and their correlation with subsequent publication. J Orthop Surg. 2015; 10:58. 19. Okafor L, Frost C, Mesfin A. Publication rate of paper presentations from the Cervical Spine Research Society annual meeting. Spine. 2015;40:699-702. 20. Bakkum BW, Trachimowicz R. Publication rates of abstracts presented at the 2006 Meeting of the American Academy of Optometry. Optom Vis Sci Off Publ Am Acad Optom. 2015;92:1069-75. 21. Durinka JB, Chang P-N, Ortiz J. Fate of abstracts presented at the 2009 American Transplant Congress. J Surg Educ. 2014;71:674-9.
Footnotes and Disclosure: The authors have no proprietary or commercial interest in any materials discussed in this article. From the Department of Ophthalmology and Vision Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont. Originally received Jul. 13, 2016. Accepted Nov. 15, 2016. Correspondence to Yvonne M. Buys, MD, Toronto Western Hospital, 399 Bathurst St., EW 6-405, Toronto, Ont. M5T 2S8; [email protected]
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Annual research meetings represent an important opportunity for physicians and investigators to share their study results. Publication in a peer-reviewed journal is the next step in both dissemination of results and perhaps provides a measure of research quality as unpublished work does not become a part of the accessible scientific literature. Publication rate can be seen as an important metric of the scientific quality of a conference. Publication rates have been reported for several society meetings, including the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (51.7%),1 American Academy of Clinical Chemistry (38%),2 the American Society of Clinical Oncology (39%),3 the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society (32%),4 and the Annual Congress of the European Society for Surgical Research (42%)4 (Table 1). Abstract publication rate varies with study design,3,5 type of presentation,4,6 and subspecialty.1 To our knowledge, the publication rate of submitted abstracts accepted at the Canadian Ophthalmological Society (COS) Annual Meeting has not previously been investigated. The aim of this study was to evaluate the publication rate of abstracts presented at the 2010 COS Annual Meeting in peer-reviewed journals.
METHODS In the 2010 COS Annual Meeting, 175 abstracts were accepted as either oral or poster presentations. A full list of
abstracts was obtained from the COS web site.7 Each abstract included type of presentation (oral vs poster), subspecialty categorization, title, and authors. Data from this document were tabulated into Excel. For each abstract, the type of presentation, title, subspecialty, study design, first and last authors’ names, number of authors, and principal investigator’s institution were recorded. A PubMed search was conducted from 1 January 2008 to 1 May 2016 for each abstract with the following format: first author [Author] AND last author [Author] AND key word [Title/Abstract]. For example, for the abstract titled “A Comparison of Standard Automated Perimetry on the Heidelberg Edge Perimeter and the Humphrey Field Analyzer” by John G. Flanagan, Yuan-Hao Ho, and Deborah Goren, the following search was used: Flanagan [Author] AND Goren [Author] AND Standard Automated Perimetry [Title/Abstract]. If no publication was found, a second search was conducted with a different key word and either author: (first author [Author] OR last author [Author]) AND key word [Title/Abstract]. If a resulting publication was found, it was reviewed to ensure that it had the same content as the abstract submitted to the COS. For published manuscripts, the year of publication, journal, and impact factor were recorded. The most recently published impact factor for the journal was used. The total publication rate was calculated in addition to the publication rate by type of presentation, subspecialty,
& 2016 Canadian Ophthalmological Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcjo.2016.11.033 ISSN 0008-4182/16 CAN J OPHTHALMOL — VOL. ], NO. ], ] 2016
1
Publication rate of abstracts presented at 2010 COS meeting—Basilious et al. Table 1—Reported meeting publication rates from 2014 to 2016 (ranked by publication rate). Rank
Meeting
1 American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine14 2 Cervical Spine Research Society4 3 Society of Gynecologic Surgeons12 4 Obstetrical and Gynecologic Society5 5 Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology1 6 Canadian Society of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery15 7 American Society for Surgery of the Hand16 8 Canadian Ophthalmological Society17 9 Society of General Internal Medicine9 10 European Society for Surgical Research6 11 German Society of Neurosurgery17 12 American Society of Clinical Oncology3 13 American Association for Clinical Chemistry2 14 Singapore Orthopedic Association18 15 Cervical Spine Research Society Europe19 16 European Congress on Osteoporosis, Osteoarthritis and Musculo-Skeletal Diseases8 17 Italian Society of Hygiene and Public Health13 18 American Academy of Optometry20 19 American Transplant Congress21 Average publication rate
study design, institution, and number of authors. The number of abstracts published was calculated per year, and the average time to publication in years was calculated for oral and poster presentations. The average journal impact factor for published oral and poster presentations was also calculated. Data were expressed primarily as proportions and means. Pearson correlation between publication type and number of authors and impact factor was analyzed.
RESULTS A total of 175 abstracts were presented at the 2010 COS Annual Meeting. Of these, 105 (60.0%) were oral presentations and 70 (40.0%) were poster presentations. As of 1 May 2016, 80 abstracts were published, giving an overall publication rate of 45.7%. The publication rate of oral presentations (49.5%) was greater than that of poster presentations (40.0%). Figure 1 shows the number of publications per year. The majority of the publications were within 2 years of the meeting; 40 (50%) by 2011 and 61 (76.3%) by 2012. Interestingly, 2 abstracts were published in 2009, before the meeting, which is against the policy for submitting an abstract. We did not find any publications in 2016 by the end of our search date, 1 May 2016. Publicaon Rate and Percent of Abstracts by Year
Number of publicaons
Overall Publication Rate (%)
2006–2010 2007–2011 2004–2012 2005 2010 2006–2010 2000–2010 2010 2009 2008–2011 2012 2009–2011 2011 2007–2013 2007–2012 2011 2005–2007 2006–2013 2009
67.10 65.70 55.70 54.00 51.70 50.50 49.00 45.70 44.00 42.00 40.40 39.00 38.00 35.80 32.00 30.90 23.50 21.00 12.60 41.49%
A total of 10 subspecialties were represented at the conference. Figure 2 shows the proportion of abstracts per subspecialty and the publication rate per subspecialty. Retina (42; 24.0%) and cornea (33; 18.8%) had the greatest number of total abstracts presented. Only 1 abstract was presented under vision rehab and uveitis; therefore, publication rates for these subspecialties were not calculated. The 1 vision rehab abstract was published, whereas the uveitis abstract was not. The publication rate varied by subspecialty from 36.0% to 57.6%. Cornea (57.6%) and public health (54.5%) had the highest publication rates, whereas cataract (36.0%) and oculoplastics (38.5%) were lowest. There was no correlation between the percentage of abstracts presented by a subspecialty and that subspecialty’s publication rate (r ¼ 0.033, p ¼ 0.928). There were a variety of study designs, including (from most to least frequent) case series, chart review, crosssectional observational, cross-sectional comparison, case report, cross-sectional survey, basic science, cohort study, case–control, randomized clinical trial, cost analysis, and meta-analysis. There was only 1 meta-analysis and 2 cost analyses, so publication rates for these study designs were Publicaon Rate and Percent of Abstracts by Subspecialty Rena Cornea
18
Cataract
16 14
Pediatrics
12
Glaucoma
10
Oculoplascs
8
Public Health
6
Neuro-ophthalmology
4
0%
2
10%
20% % of abstracts
0 2009
2010
2011
2012 posters
2013
2014
CAN J OPHTHALMOL — VOL. ], NO. ], ] 2016
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
publicaon rate
2015
oral
Fig. 1 — The number of abstracts (oral vs poster) published each year.
2
Meeting Years
Fig. 2 — Publication rate and percent of abstracts by subspecialty for those subspecialties presenting 5 or more abstracts. Uveitis and vision rehab are not included as each presented 1 abstract.
Publication rate of abstracts presented at 2010 COS meeting—Basilious et al. Publicaon Rate and Number of Authors
Publicaon Rate and Percent of Abstracts by Study Design 0.9
case series chart review cross-seconal observaonal cross-seconal comparison case report basic science cross-seconal survey cohort study randomized clinical trial case-control
Publicaon Rate
0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0
0%
10%
20%
% of abstracts
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
1 (n=12)
2 (n=31)
3 (n=35)
4 (n=28)
5 (n=21)
6 (n=14)
7 (n=17)
≥8 (n=17)
Number of Authors
publicaon rate
Fig. 3 — Publication rate and percent of abstracts by study design.
Fig. 5 — Publication rate by number of authors. Articles with Z8 authors are grouped together.
not calculated. The 1 meta-analysis was not published, whereas both cost analyses were published. Figure 3 shows the publication rate by study design. Randomized control trials (71.4%) and cohort studies (70.0%) had the highest publication rates, whereas cross-sectional observational studies (30.4%) and case reports (33.3%) had the lowest publication rates. A total of 42 institutions were represented at the conference. The majority of the abstracts (80.6%) were from Canadian universities. A total of 23 (13.1%) were from non-Canadian institutions and 11 (6.3%) from independent nonacademic Canadian institutions (Fig. 4). Figure 4 shows the breakdown of number of abstracts and publication rate by institution. The University of Toronto (46; 26.3%) and Western University (19; 10.9%) presented the most abstracts. Queen’s University (60.0%) and the University of Toronto (58.7%) had the highest publication rates, whereas McGill (16.7%) and McMaster (28.6%) had the lowest. There was no correlation between the percentage of abstracts presented from an institution and that institution’s publication rate (r ¼ 0.264, p ¼ 0.407). The publication rate of Canadian academic abstracts (46.8%) was higher than that of Canadian independent abstracts (36.4%). The publication rate for non-Canadian institutions was 43.5%. The total number of authors on an abstract ranged from 1 to 20. Abstracts with 6 authors had the highest publication rate (78.6%), whereas abstracts with 1 author had the lowest publication rate (25.0%) (Fig. 5). There
was a significant correlation between the number of authors and publication rate for abstracts with 1 to 4 authors (r ¼ 0.987, p ¼ 0.01). However, this correlation did not hold for abstracts with 5 or more authors. Abstracts presented at the 2010 COS Annual Meeting were published in 31 different journals. The most highly represented journals included the Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology (22; 29.0%) and the Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (7; 10.0%). The remaining journals had 4 or fewer publications each (Table 2). Of the abstracts published in the Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology, 22 were chart reviews, 6 cross-sectional surveys, 3 cross-sectional observational, 3 cross-sectional comparisons, 2 cohort studies, 2 case reports, 2 case series, and 1 case–control. The average impact factor of all journals represented was 2.73. There was no difference in the average impact factor for published oral (2.74) versus poster (2.72) presentations.
Publicaon Rate and Percent of Abstracts by Instuon University of Toronto Other Canadian univerises Foreign Western University Université de Montréal McGill Canadian Independent University of Brish Columbia McMaster Queens University of Calgary Dalhousie University 0
0.1
0.2
% of abstracts
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
publicaon rate
Fig. 4 — Publication rate and percent of abstracts by institution. Canadian universities presenting less than 5 abstracts were grouped into “other Canadian universities.” Institutions are ordered by percentage of abstracts.
DISCUSSION The COS Annual Meeting was first held in 1937. It is the largest ophthalmological conference in Canada. In addition to invited speakers, researchers can submit abstracts for consideration for presentation. These abstracts are reviewed by a committee to determine which are of sufficient quality and interest to be accepted for presentation at the meeting and the format for presentation, either oral or poster. The results of this study indicate that the COS Annual Meeting presents high-quality research that has a high likelihood of publication in peer-reviewed journals with an overall publication rate of 45.7% from the 2010 Annual Meeting. Table 1 compares publication rates from other meetings. Of the 19 reported meeting publication rates, the rate of COS ranked as the eighth highest. The average publication rate for all reviewed conferences was 42.03%, which was lower than that of the COS. The reported time from conference presentation to publication ranged from 1.5 to 1.75 years, which is similar to that of published abstracts at COS (1.81 years). Although much of the research from the conference was published in the Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology, a diverse range of journals was represented. CAN J OPHTHALMOL — VOL. ], NO. ], ] 2016
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Publication rate of abstracts presented at 2010 COS meeting—Basilious et al. Table 2—List of journals in which abstracts presented at the COS were published. Journal Can J Ophthalmol J Cataract Refract Surg Br J Ophthalmol J AAPOS J Glaucoma Am J Ophthalmol Cornea Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci J Refract Surg Ophthalmology Curr Eye Res Surv Ophthalmol Am J Gastroenterol Am Orthopt J Arch Ophthalmol Clin Ophthalmol Digit J Ophthalmol Exp Eye Res Eye (Lond) Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol J Neuroophthalmol J Optom JAMA Ophthalmology Mol Cell Proteomics Mol Vis Ophthal Plast Reconstr Surg Orbit Retina Sci Transl Med Telemed J E Health Tissue Eng Part A Total
Number of Publications
% of Publications
23 7 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 80
28.75 8.75 5 5 5 3.75 3.75 3.75 3.75 3.75 2.5 2.5 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 100
COS, Canadian Ophthalmological Society. The number of publications and the percentage of all publications are shown for each journal.
As with other previously reported meeting publication rates, oral abstracts had a higher publication rate than poster presentations, 49.5% versus 40.0%, respectively. This provides some validation of the factors utilized by the selection committee at the COS to award oral presentations, as these seem more likely to be published. However, we found that both oral and poster presentations were published in journals with similar impact factors. This suggests that even though poster abstracts were less likely to be published, those that were published had quality comparable to that of published oral abstracts. In contrast to this study, the majority of previously reported meeting publication rates have demonstrated higher impact factors among published oral presentations than poster presentations.6,8 Retina represented the largest percentage of accepted meeting abstracts (24.0%) followed by cornea (18.9%), cataract (14.3%), pediatrics (13.0%), and glaucoma (12.0%). Publication rate was found to vary by subspecialty, with cornea (57.6%) having the highest publication rate, followed by public health (54.5%) and glaucoma (52.4%). The publication rate for retina (40.5%) was below the meeting average; however, when considering the number of meeting abstracts, the greatest number of
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publications were in cornea (19), followed by retina (17), glaucoma (11), pediatrics (10), and cataract (9). These results are similar to those of a study by Kumar et al. in 2011, which reported that the retina made up the greatest proportion of ophthalmology publications, followed by cornea, glaucoma, and cataract.9 Randomized clinical trials presented at the COS meeting had the highest publication rate (71.4%). This is similar to the reported publication rate of randomized clinical trials presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (75.0%).3 In contrast, case reports (33.3%) had a particularly low publication rate despite representing 10.3% of all abstracts. The most common methodology presented was case series (21.7% of all abstracts), which had a publication rate close to average (47.4%). A recent study exploring ophthalmology publications of Canadian ophthalmology departments between 2005 and 2009 demonstrated that 40.1% of published work was case reports/case series, which is similar to their representation at COS (32%).9 Randomized control trials comprised 3.3% of ophthalmology publications, also matching their proportion at COS (4.0%).9 The University of Toronto represented the institution with the largest percentage of abstracts (26.3%) and the second highest publication rate (58.7%). In contrast, Queens University had the highest publication rate (60.0%) but only presented 5 of the abstracts (2.9%). Between 2005 and 2009 the University of Toronto produced the highest percentage of ophthalmology publications (29.3%), followed by University of British Columbia (UBC; 18.7%) and McGill (15.7%).10 However, UBC (7; 4.0%) and McGill (12; 6.9%) were relatively under-represented at the 2010 COS Annual Meeting. The 2010 meeting was held in Quebec, which likely influenced the number of submissions from UBC. Another important factor when considering institution productivity is funding. The University of Montreal, McGill, University of Toronto, and Western University received the largest amount of vision-related funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research between 2001 and 2010 and from federal grants between 2006 and 2010.11 These 4 universities were also the top abstract contributors at the 2010 COS Annual Meeting. Overall, Canadian academic institutions presenting at the 2010 COS Annual Meeting were found to have a higher publication rate than independent institutions, as has been similarly demonstrated at other conferences.2,12,13
LIMITATIONS In this study we examined only publication rates for 1 year of the COS Annual Meeting. Publication rates may vary from year to year. We chose to study the results from the 2010 meeting to allow a reasonable time for publication. It is possible that some abstracts are yet to be published, and so the publication rate may increase. It is
Publication rate of abstracts presented at 2010 COS meeting—Basilious et al. also possible that a few publications of conference abstracts were not found in the literature search if they were not easily accessible online, were not published in English, or had different authors or key words from the presented abstract. However, it is unlikely that this represents a significant number of publications. Finally, we recorded the institution of a publication based on the last author’s institution. However, some studies were multicentred, and it is possible that the last author may not be the principal author. Again, this likely represents a small number of publications, and we were consistent in our institution assignment process so as not to induce any bias. The results by institution also are likely to be affected by meeting location, as longer travel distances may influence a presenter’s willingness to submit an abstract and attend the meeting.
CONCLUSIONS We found a competitive 5-year publication rate of abstracts presented at the 2010 COS Annual Meeting. This supports the overall high quality of research presented at this meeting. In addition, we demonstrated that oral abstracts have a higher publication rate than poster presentations. Finally, publication rate varied widely by institution, subspecialty, and number of authors.
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS Y.M.B. and A.B. conceived and designed the study. A. B. and A.V. collected data and performed data analysis. A. B. and Y.M.B. wrote the manuscript and A.V. critically reviewed the manuscript. REFERENCES 1. Villani E, Carducci FT, Vujosevic S, Nucci P. The fate of research abstracts presented at the ARVO annual meeting. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2016;57:5557. 2. Greene DN, Wilson AR, Bailey NM, Schmidt RL. Publication outcome of abstracts presented at the AACC annual meeting. Clin Chim Acta Int J Clin Chem. 2016;456:49-55. 3. Massey PR, Wang R, Prasad V, Bates SE, Fojo T. Assessing the eventual publication of clinical trial abstracts submitted to a large annual oncology meeting. Oncologist. 2016;21:261-8. 4. Janssen T, Bartels R, Lind B, Villas Tome C, Vleggeert-Lankamp CLA. Publication rate of paper and podium presentations from the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society Annual Meeting. Eur Spine J. 2016;25:2311-6. 5. Muffly TM, Webster K, Conageski C, Guiahi M. Predictors of manuscript publication: a review of Obstetrics and Gynecology Society meeting abstracts. Female Pelvic Med Reconstr Surg. 2016;22:83-7. 6. Meral UM, Alakus U, Urkan M, et al. Publication rate of abstracts presented at the Annual Congress of the European Society for Surgical Research during 2008–2011. Eur Surg Res. 2016;56:132-40. 7. Canadian Ophthalmological Society. Abstracts, 2010 Annual Meeting Québec City. 2010. 〈http://www.cos-sco.ca/annualmeeting/2010/pro gram/COS2010AbstractBook.pdf〉 accessed 17 May 2016.
8. Rabenda V, Bruyère O, Cooper C, et al. Publication outcomes of the abstracts presented at the 2011 European Congress on Osteoporosis, Osteoarthritis and Musculo-Skeletal Diseases (ECCEOIOF11): A position paper of the European Society for Clinical and Economical Aspects of Osteoporosis, Osteoarthritis and MusculoSkeletal Diseases (ESCEO) and the International Osteoporosis and Other Skeletal Diseases Foundation (IOF). Arch Osteoporos. 2015;10:11. 9. Kumar A, Cheeseman R, Durnian JM. Subspecialization of the ophthalmic literature: a review of the publishing trends of the top general, clinical ophthalmic journals. Ophthalmology. 2011;118:1211-4. 10. Micieli A, Micieli JA, Smith AF. Analysis of the publication volume of Canadian ophthalmology departments from 2005 to 2009: a systematic review of the literature. Can J Ophthalmol. 2011;46: 66-71. 11. Schlenker MB, Manalo E, Wong AMF. Research productivity of Canadian ophthalmology departments in top 10 ophthalmology and vision science journals from 2001 to 2010. Can J Ophthalmol. 2013;48:46-55. 12. Propst K, O’Sullivan D, Tulikangas P. Quality evaluation of abstracts presented at the Society of Gynecologic Surgeons annual scientific meeting. J Minim Invasive Gynecol. 2015;22:1045-8. 13. Castaldi S, Giacometti M, Toigo W, Bert F, Siliquini R. Analysis of full-text publication and publishing predictors of abstracts presented at an Italian public health meeting (2005–2007). BMC Res Notes. 2015;8:492. 14. Kinsella SD, Menge TJ, Anderson AF, Spindler KP. Publication rates of podium versus poster presentations at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine meetings: 2006–2010. Am J Sports Med. 2015;43:1255-9. 15. Ogilvie LN, Pauwels J, Chadha NK, Kozak FK. Publication rate of abstracts presented at the Canadian Society of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery annual meetings: a five year study 2006–2010. J Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2014;43:51. 16. Theman TA, Labow BI, Taghinia A. Discrepancies between meeting abstracts and subsequent full text publications in hand surgery. J Hand Surg. 2014;39:1585-90. e3. 17. Czorlich P, Regelsberger J, Meixensberger J, Westphal M, Eicker SO. From abstract to publication in a peer-reviewed journal: evaluation of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the German Society of Neurosurgery. J Neurol Surg Part Cent Eur Neurosurg. 2016;77:46-51. 18. Daruwalla ZJ, Huq SS, Wong KL, Nee PY, Murphy DP. ‘Publish or perish’—presentations at annual national orthopaedic meetings and their correlation with subsequent publication. J Orthop Surg. 2015; 10:58. 19. Okafor L, Frost C, Mesfin A. Publication rate of paper presentations from the Cervical Spine Research Society annual meeting. Spine. 2015;40:699-702. 20. Bakkum BW, Trachimowicz R. Publication rates of abstracts presented at the 2006 Meeting of the American Academy of Optometry. Optom Vis Sci Off Publ Am Acad Optom. 2015;92:1069-75. 21. Durinka JB, Chang P-N, Ortiz J. Fate of abstracts presented at the 2009 American Transplant Congress. J Surg Educ. 2014;71:674-9.
Footnotes and Disclosure: The authors have no proprietary or commercial interest in any materials discussed in this article. From the Department of Ophthalmology and Vision Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont. Originally received Jul. 13, 2016. Accepted Nov. 15, 2016. Correspondence to Yvonne M. Buys, MD, Toronto Western Hospital, 399 Bathurst St., EW 6-405, Toronto, Ont. M5T 2S8; [email protected]
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