current rates of publication for podium and poster presentations at the american society for surgery of the hand annual meetings

background:  research projects are presented at the annual meetings of the american society for surgery of the hand (assh). it is unknown how many achieve publication in peer-reviewed journals. we sought to determine current rates of publication of podium and poster presentations.   methods:  all assh podium and poster presentations from 2000 to 2005 were reviewed, and an internet-based search using pubmed and google was conducted to determine whether the presented studies had been published. times to publication and journal names were recorded. data were analyzed with descriptive statistics. fisher’s exact test was conducted to compare current trends with previous trends. results:  of 1127 podium and poster presentations reviewed, 46% were published in peer-reviewed journals. forty-seven percent of published presentations (242 presentations) were in journal of hand surgery , and 11% (59 entations) were in journal of bone and joint surgery . forty-five percent of presentations were published within 2 years and 66% within 3 years. the publication rate for podium presentations was significantly higher than that previously reported for journal of hand surgery, at 54% compared with 44% (p=0.004).  conclusions:  currently, fewer than half of the studies presented at annual meetings of the assh achieve publication in peer-eviewed journals. presentations are most likely to be published within 3 years, and almost half are published in journal of hand surgery .