A critical analysis of publication rates of national oncology meeting abstracts in Turkey

Abstract

Purpose: In this study our aim is to analyze the publication rates of abstracts, which were presented between 2006 and 2011 years in biennial National Cancer Meeting of Turkey (NCM) and Turkish Medical Oncology Society Meeting (TMOSM) and to determine the timely change of publication rates and to predict the quality of the abstracts. Methods: All abstracts, which are either accepted as podium or poster presentations in NCM and TMOM between 2006 and 2011, are extracted. Subsequent publication rate of those abstracts were defined by searching PubMed and Turkish Medical Index. Results: Between 2006 and 2011, overall 2451 abstracts were presented in annual NC and TMOS meetings. Of these 2451 abstracts, 286 of them (11.7%) were published in consecutive years. Median publication interval was 11 months. While 28 of 286 (9.8%) abstracts were published in national journals, 258 of them (90.2%) were published in international journals. 97 of a total of 424 podium presentations (22.9%) were published. The publication rate was correlated with the type of presentation (OP vs. PP: 22.9% vs. 9.3%, p < 0.001). The highest publication rate was for prospective studies (%14.4). Majority of abstracts (53.1%) were published in journals indexed within the science citation index (SCI). Rest of the published abstracts were in index of SCI-expanded. Conclusions: Non-publication of research abstracts is a problem for 88.3% of abstracts of this study. The data presented in this study should lead abstract authors to criticize themselves and find a way to improve their study quality. Keywords: Abstract, Full-text, Manuscript, Peer-review, Publication rate