Are there guidelines for reporting clinical research findings in oral lectures and seminars in dental meetings?

Key Points Stresses major dental meetings have no specific guidelines for reporting scientific data in oral lectures and seminars. Suggests clear recommendations are needed for presenting scientific data in oral lectures and seminars in a systematic and unbiased way to allow the audience to make proper conclusions about the efficacy/effectiveness of therapies. Dental meetings are one of the most important resources for disseminating knowledge to dental practitioners. Therefore, the information provided in such meetings should be as unbiased as possible. This paper assessed whether major general dentistry and periodontology/implant dentistry meetings have guidelines for reporting scientific evidence in oral lectures and seminars. The homepages of seven dental meetings (EUROPERIO, AAP, EAO, AO, IADR, ADA, and FDI) were assessed to check for guidelines for presenting scientific data in oral lectures and seminars, according to defined criteria. Only three of these dental meetings reported information for presentations on their homepages, although these guidelines were related to technical issues rather than recommendations for the presentation of scientific data. The present paper suggests guidelines for reporting scientific evidence in oral lectures and seminars in dental meetings to improve the current standards of reporting. High standards of reporting may provide less biased information, which is necessary for dental practitioners and clinicians to make accurate judgements on the efficacy/effectiveness of therapies.