Publication rate of general surgery abstracts presented at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Annual Scientific Congress

BACKGROUND: A commonly used metric for evaluating the quality and impact of presentations at a scientific meeting is the frequency with which the findings presented are published as full research papers in peer-reviewed journals. The purpose of this study was to determine the full article publication rates of abstract presentations for General Surgery and related sub-specialities at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Annual Scientific Congress (RACS ASC) from 2010 to 2014. METHODS: All General Surgical (including its sub-speciality groups) abstracts presented at the RACS ASC from 2010 to 2014 were identified from the ANZ Journal of Surgery. We determined the rates of full paper publication, time to publication, journals of publication and specialty rates of conversion. Full article publications were identified using the PubMed, MEDLINE and Google Scholar databases. RESULTS: A total of 1386 abstracts were identified, of which 356 (26%) were converted to full paper publications. The number of abstracts presented annually increased from 206 in 2010 to 386 in 2014, but the percentage of abstracts converted to full paper publications did not follow any temporal trend. The majority (74%) of full papers were published within 2 years of the abstract presentation. CONCLUSION: In total, 26% of General Surgery abstracts presented at the RACS ASC from 2010 to 2014 were converted to full paper publications. This could provide a baseline against which to judge the quality of presentations at other national General Surgical congresses, as well as at future RACS ASC meetings.