title: Discrepancies between meeting abstracts and subsequent full text publications in hand surgery.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Research abstracts presented during the proceedings of an annual meeting are often cited and can influence clinical practice. Prior studies show that roughly 50% of abstracts at American Society for Surgery of the Hand meetings are eventually published. Yet, it is unknown how often the results or conclusions of published studies differ from the podium presentation. The objective of this study was to quantify the differences between abstracts presented during the annual meeting of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand and the resulting manuscripts.
  
  
  METHODS
  We retrospectively reviewed every abstract delivered as a podium presentation at the American Society for Surgery of the Hand annual meeting from 2000 to 2010. We searched the PubMed database for matching publications and compared authorship, country of origin, hypothesis, study design and methodology, changes in study groups or populations, results, and conclusions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of 798 total abstracts, we analyzed 719 involving the hand, wrist, and brachial plexus. Fifty-six different journals published 393 of the abstracts, for a 49% publication rate. Mean time to publication was 18 months with a median of 14 and maximum of 122 months. There were inconsistencies between the results and/or conclusions in 14% of full-length articles compared with the abstract presented at the meeting. A total of 9% of articles were published with fewer subjects. Authorships changes were noted in 54% of publications.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Abstracts represent preliminary investigations and major and minor changes occur before subsequent publication. Caution should be exercised in referencing abstracts or altering clinical practice based on their content.
  
  
  METHODS
  Economic/decision analysis IV.
authors.affiliation: Department of Plastic and Oral Surgery, Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
authors.forename: Todd A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Theman
authors.affiliation: Department of Plastic and Oral Surgery, Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
authors.forename: Brian I
authors.initials: BI
authors.lastname: Labow
authors.affiliation: Department of Plastic and Oral Surgery, Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. Electronic address: amir.taghinia@childrens.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Amir
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Taghinia
mesh_terms: D000043:Abstracting and Indexing; D015706:Bibliometrics; D006126:Group Processes; D006225:Hand / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D009985:Orthopedics / Q000592:standards*; D011643:Publishing; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012955:Societies, Medical
keywords: Abstract; hand surgery; indexing; publications