Publication of abstracts presented at Annual American Contact Dermatitis Society Meetings.

BACKGROUND: Medical meetings provide a forum for the open discussion and sharing of new information for attendees. Peer-reviewed publication provides greater distribution of vetted information. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to analyze the publication of presentations from annual American Contact Dermatitis Society meetings. METHODS: Abstracts presented at the 2000, 2003, and 2006 American Contact Dermatitis Society meetings were identified. By keywords and author names, PubMed was searched for published papers corresponding to the work presented at these annual meetings. Matches were confirmed by comparing the content of the abstracts with the fully published articles. RESULTS: Of 115 presented abstracts, 55% resulted in the publication of an article by November 2009; 5% of abstracts had been published prior to presentation. Time to publication was 0.25 to 6.0 years. Mean time to publication was 1.8 years. CONCLUSIONS: Over one-half of all American Contact Dermatitis Society presentations resulted in the publication of an original article. Most were published within 2 years. The great majority of abstracts were published in Dermatitis (formerly the American Journal of Contact Dermatitis).