Publication rates of papers presented at the Brazilian Orthopedic Meeting

OBJECTIVE: To quantify the publication rates of the papers presented at the 2007 Brazilian Orthopedics Meeting (Congresso Brasileiro de Ortopedia - CBOT). METHODS: Evaluation of the proportion of abstracts submitted by the various orthopedic subspecialties and according to the Brazilian states. Then, a Lilacs and PubMed search was performed in order to determine which presentations generated national or international published papers. RESULTS: São Paulo and the Southeast region were responsible for the greatest number of presentations at the congress (54.1% and 68.3% respectively). Shoulder and Elbow were the subspecialty responsible for more presentations (13.8%). Among the 653 studies presented at the congress, 174 (26.6%) were published. Oral presentations obtained a publication rate 3.58 times higher than posters. CONCLUSION: The CBOT publication rate is lower than 30%. Many of the papers presented at the CBOT does not pass the scrutiny of scientific journals and therefore should not be the only source of scientific update of the participants: Descriptive Epidemiologic.