Publication Rates and Inconsistencies of the Abstracts Presented at the National Anatomy Congresses in 2007 and 2008

BACKGROUND: Despite significant efforts made for, most abstracts presented during a meeting do not proceed and publish as a manuscript in scientific journals. AIMS: To investigate publication rates of national anatomy congresses. STUDY DESIGN: Descriptive study. METHODS: All abstracts presented at two annual meetings in 2007 and 2008 were extracted. PubMed and Google Scholar database search used for publication history. Presentation and study types, publication rates and mean publishing times were evaluated. Inconsistency rates between meeting abstract and final published article were also considered. RESULTS: Among 342 abstracts, 195 (57%) were followed by a full-text article. Publication rates for oral and poster presentations were 75% and 52.2%, respectively. The mean publication time was 23.7±23 months. Overall, 89.2% of the articles were published within 5 years. There were no inconsistencies in 50 (25.6%) articles, while 145 (74.4%) had inconsistencies compared to the abstracts presented at the congress. Getting adequate information for 45 (23.1%) articles was not possible. There was no standard reporting format for the abstracts. CONCLUSION: Our study shows that, overall publication rates for abstracts presented at national anatomy meetings were higher than those presented at national meetings for clinical specialties.