DOI: 10.1177/24730114261489182 ISSN: 2473-0114

Publication Rate of Podium and Poster Presentations From the American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society Meetings: 2013-2024

Julieta Brué, Elizabeth R. Blackwood, Kira Lu, Cristian Maldonado Rodas, Jaeden Cortes, Malak Mustafa, Lolita Micicoi, Cesar de Cesar Netto
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Background:

Scientific meetings are a primary venue for disseminating orthopaedic research, but not all presented work reaches full-text publication. The publication rate of American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society (AOFAS) annual meeting abstracts has been examined only once, for the 2008 through 2012 meetings. We determined the publication rate, time to publication, and journals of publication for podium and poster presentations from 2013 through 2024.

Methods:

We retrospectively reviewed all podium (oral) and poster presentations from the 12 AOFAS annual meetings held between 2013 and 2024, and all podium presentations from the 3 AOFAS Winter Meetings (2022 through 2024). Two reviewers searched PubMed/MEDLINE, supplemented by manual searching, for a concordant full-text publication of each abstract through June 2026. Publication rates with 95% CIs, time to publication, the proportions published within 2 and 3 years, and the most frequent journals were determined. Trends across meeting years were assessed by the Cochran-Armitage test and linear regression.

Results:

Of 954 podium abstracts, 440 (46.1%; 95% CI, 43.0-49.3) reached full-text publication, compared with 1426 of 4264 poster abstracts (33.4%; 95% CI, 32.0-34.9; P < .001). Median time to publication was 10 months for podium and 9.4 months for poster presentations. Foot & Ankle International was the most frequent journal for both formats (43.9% and 26.5%), and Foot & Ankle Orthopaedics accounted for 4.5% and 7.2%; restricted to the 2016 meeting onward, the 2 society journals together accounted for 45. 5% of podium and 33.5% of poster publications. The number of podium presentations did not change significantly over the study period ( P = .06) whereas poster presentations ( P = .009) and total presentations ( P = .027) increased. Among meetings with mature follow-up (2013 through 2022), no significant trend in the podium publication rate was detected ( P = .06). Across the 3 Winter Meetings, at which all accepted abstracts were presented from the podium, 50 of 102 (49.0%) were published.

Conclusion:

Nearly half of AOFAS podium presentations and approximately one-third of poster presentations reached full-text publication, most within 3 years and most often in Foot & Ankle International . The gap in publication rates between podium and poster presentations, described a decade earlier, has persisted, although it is somewhat smaller. The number of podium presentations remained stable while poster and total presentations have increased, indicating that the growth of the meeting has occurred through poster formats.

Level of Evidence:

Level IV, retrospective review.

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