Publication outcome of abstracts submitted to the American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting

Objective: Abstracts submitted to meetings are subject to less rigorous peer review than full-text manuscripts. This study aimed to explore the publication outcome of abstracts presented at the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) annual meeting. Methods: Abstracts presented at the 2008 AAO meeting were analyzed. Each presented abstract was sought via PubMed to identify if it had been published as a full-text manuscript. The publication outcome, journal impact factor (IF), and time to publication were recorded. Results: A total of 690 abstracts were reviewed, of which 39.1% were subsequently published. They were published in journals with a median IF of 2.9 (range 0–7.2) and a median publication time of 426 days (range 0–2,133 days). A quarter were published in the journal Ophthalmology, with a shorter time to publication (median 282 vs. 534 days, p =0.003). Oral presentations were more likely to be published than poster presentations (57.8% vs. 35.9%, p <0.001) and in journals with higher IFs (3.2 vs. 2.8, p =0.02). Abstracts describing rare diseases had higher publication rates (49.4% vs. 38.0%, p =0.04) and were published in higher IF journals (3.7 vs. 2.9, p =0.03), within a shorter period of time (358 vs. 428 days, p =0.03). In multivariate analysis, affiliation with an institute located in the United States ( p =0.002), abstracts describing rare diseases ( p =0.03), and funded studies ( p =0.03) were associated with publication in higher IF journals. Conclusions: Almost 40% of abstracts were published. Factors that correlated with publication in journals with higher IF were a focus on rare diseases, affiliation with a US institute, and funding.