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Discrepancies between meeting abstracts and subsequent full text publications in hand surgery
Todd A Theman1, Brian I Labow1, Amir Taghinia1
1Department of Plastic and Oral Surgery, Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
The Journal of Hand Surgery
|June 18, 2014
Summary
Conference abstracts may differ from published studies. Researchers found 14% of published articles showed result/conclusion changes compared to the original abstract. Caution is advised when citing abstracts or changing clinical practice.
Area of Science:
- Orthopedic Surgery
- Medical Publishing
- Scientific Communication
Background:
- Research abstracts presented at annual meetings can influence clinical practice.
- Previous studies indicate approximately 50% of abstracts from the American Society for Surgery of the Hand (ASSH) meetings are published.
Purpose of the Study:
- To quantify the differences between abstracts presented at the ASSH annual meeting and their corresponding published manuscripts.
- To assess changes in results and conclusions between podium presentations and full-text publications.
Main Methods:
- Retrospective review of podium abstracts presented at the ASSH annual meeting (2000-2010).
- PubMed database search for matching publications.
- Comparison of authorship, origin, hypothesis, study design, methodology, participant numbers, results, and conclusions.
Main Results:
- A 49% publication rate was observed for 719 analyzed hand, wrist, and brachial plexus abstracts.
- Inconsistencies in results or conclusions were found in 14% of published articles compared to abstracts.
- Authorship changes occurred in 54% of publications, and 9% of articles were published with fewer subjects.
Conclusions:
- Abstracts represent preliminary findings, and significant modifications can occur before publication.
- Clinical practice should not be altered based solely on abstract content due to potential changes in published data.
