Current Publication Rates of Abstracts Presented at the Orthopaedic Trauma Association Annual Meetings: 2005-2010

Objectives: To evaluate the publication rate of abstracts presented at the 2005-2010 Orthopaedic Trauma Association (OTA) Annual Meetings. Methods: All abstracts from the 2005 to 2010 OTA meetings were identified through the OTA's official website. Each abstract was searched across PubMed and Google to determine its publication status. The overall publication rate of abstracts was determined, along with the first authors' sex, number of authors, time and journal of publication, and analyzed with statistical testing. Results: Of the 392 abstracts presented at the 2005-2010 OTA meetings, the overall publication rate was 66.3%, with an overall mean time to publication of 28.3 months. The Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma published 38.5% of published OTA abstracts, the most of any journal. The proportions of published OTA abstracts with female first authors exhibit increasing trends within the time period. Conclusion: The quality of research presented at OTA meetings is relatively high compared with other orthopaedic meetings, with 66.3% of OTA abstracts progressing to peer-reviewed publication. The publication rate of 2005-2010 OTA abstracts was greater than that of the 1990-1995 abstracts. The Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma remains the most frequent publisher of manuscripts presented as abstracts at OTA meetings. Although most abstracts are eventually published, the information presented at these meetings, like all scholarly work, should be critically evaluated as they have undergone a less robust peer-review process and may be modified in the future in preparation for publication.