Publication rate of abstracts presented at the annual meetings of the AANS/CNS Section on Disorders of the Spine and Peripheral Nerves

Abstract

OBJECTIVEThe objective of this study was to determine the publication rate of abstracts presented at the annual meetings of the AANS/CNS Section on Disorders of the Spine and Peripheral Nerves (Spine Summit).METHODSThe authors used a search algorithm in PubMed to determine the publication rate of abstracts presented at the Spine Summit from 2007 to 2012. The variables assessed were presentation modality, topic, meeting year, publication year, destiny journal and its 5-year impact factor (IF), country, and citation count (retrieved from the Scopus database).RESULTSOne thousand four hundred thirty-six abstracts were analyzed; 502 were oral presentations and 934 were digital poster presentations. The publication rate was 53.97% (775/1436). The mean time from presentation to publication was 1.35 ± 1.97 years (95% CI 1.21–1.49 years). The mean citation count of published articles was 40.55 ± 55.21 (95% CI 36.66–44.44). Oral presentations had a higher publication rate (71.51%, 359/502) than digital posters (44.54%, 416/934; OR 3.13, 95% CI 2.48–3.95, p < 0.001). Oral presentations had a higher number of citations (55.51 ± 69.00, 95% CI 48.35–62.67) than digital posters (27.64 ± 34.88, 95% CI 24.28–31.00, p < 0.001). The mean IF of published articles was 3.48 ± 2.91 (95% CI 3.27–3.70). JNS: Spine (191/775, 24.64%), Spine (103/775, 13.29%), and Neurosurgery (56/775, 7.23%) had the greatest number of published articles. The US represented the highest number of published articles (616/775, 79.48%).CONCLUSIONSThe publication rate of the Spine Summit is among the highest compared to other spine meetings. Many of the abstracts initially presented at the meeting are further published in high-IF journals and had a high citation count. Therefore, the Spine Summit maintains its high standards of scientific papers, which reflects the high quality of the research performed in the spine surgery field in North America.