Stronger Together in Lab: Multi-Center and Laboratory Spine Studies Are Closer to Publication than Single-Center and Clinical Spine Studies: Snapshot of Annual Meetings of the Spine Society of Europe

STUDY DESIGN: This is a cross-sectional study of literature databases. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to analyze the predictive factors for the publication rates of spine studies. OVERVIEW OF LITERATURE: Spine research has garnered worldwide interest due to the increased number of spinal disorders in aging population. METHODS: We evaluated the abstracts presented at the annual meetings of the Spine Society of Europe between 2009 and 2012. Additionally, we recorded presentation categories, study designs, research types, random assignments of the subjects, single- or multi-center- based methodologies, and significance of the results. RESULTS: We evaluated 965 abstracts, 53.5% of which were published in peer-reviewed journals. Publication rates were significantly higher for oral presentations (62.9%) and prospective studies (61.3%) as compared to the poster presentations (46.7%) and retrospective studies (44.2%), respectively (p <0.001). Clinical studies contributed to about 86.1% of the published abstracts. However, publication rates were significantly higher for laboratory studies as compared to clinical studies (70.1% vs. 50.8%, p <0.001). Multi-center studies were closer to publication than single-center studies (67.1% vs. 52.2%, p =0.009). Our study demonstrated that multi-center studies (odds ratio, 1.81; p =0.016) and laboratory studies (odds ratio, 2.60; p <0.001) are more likely to be published. CONCLUSIONS: Multi-center collaborations dedicated to experimental studies in spine research are highly ranked and more likely to be published in peer-reviewed journals.