R adiology meetings provide a significant channel for exchanging scientific information. Abstract presentations at national meetings allow a rapid transfer of knowledge in summarizing current research and focusing future research endeavors (1)(2)(3)(4)(5). In spite of the fact that many studies are of sufficient value for presentation in these sessions, only the most instructive and highest quality studies are worthy of full-text publication in a peer-reviewed journal (2). The rate of publication may be considered as an indicator of the scientific quality of the meeting, that is, the ratio of presented abstracts to full-text published papers in peer-reviewed journals. In a survey of the literature, the publication rate of papers from a variety of specialties ranged between 8.5% and 78% (6). Worldwide, only a few investigations exist concerning radiology meetings, which report rates ranging 11%-47% (1-8). According to a study evaluating Turkish radiology meetings in years 1995-2002, the overall publication rate was 11% (1). We aimed to investigate the subsequent publication rates in Medline-indexed journals from presentations at the Turkish Congress of Radiology between 2010 and 2012.
MethodsUsing the abstract CDs from the meetings, a list of the presentations submitted to Turkish national radiology congresses between 2010 and 2012 was obtained. The publication rate in Medline-indexed journals was determined by searching the PubMed database with the aim of exploring whether the abstracts had been expanded to full-text articles by September 2014. Three of the authors (N.F., A.K., and H.U.) performed this search via PubMed® using the first author's surname and initial(s). If this failed, the same search was performed for the second author or if necessary an appropriate keyword from the title of the abstract was added to the search. To
METHODSAbstracts presented in the national radiology meetings of 2010, 2011, and 2012 were included in the study. The presentations were classified according to presentation type (oral or poster presentations), study type, study design, imaged organ or body systems, imaging modalities, time interval between the presentation and the publication date, and the journal in which the article was published. The conversion rate of presentations into full-text articles in peer-reviewed journals were surveyed through PubMed. The time from presentation in the meetings to publication was determined. The distribution of journals was also demonstrated.
RESULTSThe total number of presentations submitted in three national radiology meetings was 3,192. The publication rate was 11% for the 2010 meeting, 8.2% for the 2011 meeting, and 9.6% for the 2012 meeting. A total of 300 papers were published, with an average of 15 months (range, 0-42 months) between presentation and final publication. The first three refereed international journals with the most number of papers derived from these meetings were Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Clinical Imaging, and European Journal of Radiology.
CONCLUSIO...
