Abstract
The present study aims to identify (1) what proportion of abstracts of clinical trials presented at The American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery (ASLMS) annual meetings are published as full reports, (2) time to publication, and (3) factors that may predict the publication of research in peer-reviewed journals. Two investigators independently hand-searched all abstracts of the ASLMS meetings to identify all reports of clinical trials. Details of sample size, the country of origin, topic of research, type of presentation, type of laser, direction of outcome, and statistical significance were recorded for each abstract. To determine the full publication status of each study, The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, PubMed, and EMBASE was searched. A total of 198 abstracts were identified. Of these, 87 abstracts (44%) have been fully published. The average time from presentation at the meeting to full publication was 57 months (95% confidence interval = 52–61), and the estimated rate of abstracts published at 1, 2, and 4 years was 15, 30, and 38%, respectively. There is significant tendency for being fully published in high-power laser studies, with USA as country of origin, and orally presented. Our findings supports this opinion that conference abstracts can be an important source for systematic reviews and failure to identify trials presented in congresses might threaten the validity of systematic reviews.
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Acknowledgments
We wish to thank Dr. Reza Yousefi Nooraie for his valuable comments on designing this study. We gratefully acknowledge Dr. Hojjat Salmasian who kindly edited the manuscript. The present study has been supported by Medical Sciences/University of Tehran, grant number 85-04-61-4943.
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Akbari-Kamrani, M., Shakiba, B. & Parsian, S. Transition from congress abstract to full publication for clinical trials presented at laser meetings. Lasers Med Sci 23, 295–299 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10103-007-0484-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10103-007-0484-4