Publication Rates for Oral Manuscript and Poster Presentations From the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons: 2015 to 2019

The quality of national society conferences is often assessed indirectly by analyzing the journal publication rate of the abstracts presented. The conversion rate of abstracts presented at the annual American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons conference is currently the highest reported (76.9%) for any foot and ankle society to date. The purpose of the present retrospective study was to re-assess the journal publication rate for abstracts (oral manuscript, poster) accepted for presentation at the annual meeting, this time from 2015 to 2019. All accepted abstracts from this period were compiled in a database. PubMed, Google Scholar, and Scopus searches were performed using abstract titles, and author names. The journal publication rate was 80.7% (92/114) for oral manuscripts, and 23.1% (287/1240) for poster abstracts. The mean time to publication was 18.7 months (0 to 75), and 19.1 months (0 to 88) for oral manuscript and posters, respectively. The most common journal for abstract publication was The Journal of Foot and Ankle Surgery. The American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons oral manuscript publication rate from 2015 to 2019 (80.7%) exceeded the previous reported rate from 2010 to 2014 (76.9%), and is now the highest reported for any national foot and ankle society to date. Attendees of the oral presentations, and readers of the Journal of Foot and Ankle Surgery may remain confident in the quality, and clinical significance of the research presented.