Duplicate presentations on prostate cancer at American Urological Association and European Association of Urology annual meetings.
OBJECTIVE
We determined the rate of duplicate research presentations at recent American Urological Association and European Urological Association annual meetings.


METHODS
We cross-referenced all clinical research presentations related to prostate cancer presented at the 2006 American Urological Association and European Urological Association annual meetings with those presented at the corresponding annual meetings in 2005, 2006 and 2007 using a defined search strategy based on author names, abstract titles, study design and objectives. All data abstraction was performed in duplicate by 2 independent reviewers to ensure accuracy.


RESULTS
We identified 282 and 312 abstracts on prostate cancer clinical research at the 2006 European Urological Association and American Urological Association annual meetings, respectively. The overall duplication rate of American Urological Association abstracts was 19.2% (60 of 312). Of duplicated abstracts 80.0% (48 of 60) were presented at the European Urological Association annual meeting the same year. Duplication of European Urological Association abstracts was identified in 20.9% (59 of 282). Authors who presented the same research (71 duplicate abstracts) at the 2 meetings altered the presentations in various ways, including a different study title in 40.8%, a different first and senior author in 14.1% and 18.3%, and increased or decreased sample size in 8.5% and 14.1%, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
Approximately a fifth of clinical research abstracts on prostate cancer presented at the American Urological Association annual meeting were also presented at the European Urological Association meeting and vice versa. Inconsistencies between duplicate abstracts raise concerns about the integrity of the underlying studies. Stricter submission guidelines and improved dissemination of research findings from the 2 meetings may help limit this practice.
Pop
George H
GH
University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.
Fesperman
Susan F
SF
Ball
David A
DA
Yeung
Lawrence L
LL
Vieweg
Johannes
J
Dahm
Philipp
P
D000043:Abstracting and Indexing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003226:Congresses as Topic; D005060:Europe; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms; D012955:Societies, Medical; D014481:United States; D014572:Urology