Abstract
BACKGROUND: The scientific rigor of the abstracts presented at the American Society of Breast Surgeons (ASBrS) annual meeting has not been recently evaluated. In this study, we sought to determine the rate at which abstracts presented at the 2017 and 2018 ASBrS meetings were published in peer-reviewed journals, and compared the rates with breast abstracts presented at the 2018 Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) meeting. METHODS: Abstracts from the 2017 and 2018 ASBrS and 2018 SSO conferences were searched in PubMed for published manuscripts using the abstract title and/or first or last author. RESULTS: In 2017, 21.6% of the 268 abstracts presented at the ASBrS conference resulted in full publication, compared with 36.6% of the 273 abstracts presented at the 2018 ASBrS conference, resulting in a significant difference in the publication rate (p < 0.001). Of the 158 abstracts published from the 2017 and 2018 meetings, 75 (47.8%) were published in Annals of Surgical Oncology (ASO). There was no correlation between impact factor and time to publication. Oral presentations and quick shots were more likely to be published than poster presentations, and oral presentations were more likely to be published in higher-impact journals. The 2018 SSO meetings resulted in 54 of 111 (48.6%) breast abstracts leading to full publication. CONCLUSION: Approximately 29.2% of the abstracts presented at the ASBrS 2017 and 2018 conferences resulted in a published manuscript. A higher publication rate in higher impact journals for oral presentations indicates that the abstract review process properly stratifies the research.