Whatever happened to abstracts from different sections of the association for research in vision and ophthalmology?

PURPOSE The authors investigated the fate of abstracts from each ARVO section (May 1985 meeting), the overall publication percentage, and the journals in which the abstract-derived articles were published. METHODS They performed a MEDLINE search by first author for 25 or 26 randomly selected abstracts from each section to identify those that led to full-length articles in peer-reviewed journals. RESULTS Overall, 63% of abstracts led to full-length articles in peer-reviewed journals within our search period of 87 months. The publication rate of oral presentation abstracts (68%) was significantly higher than that of poster presentation abstracts (56%). A greater proportion of basic science-oriented abstracts (67%) led to publication than the clinically oriented abstracts (56%). The rate of publication was lowest for the Cornea section (40%) and highest for Physiology and Pharmacology (80%) and Biochemistry (76%). The abstract-derived articles were published in 67 different peer-reviewed journals, with 43% of the articles appearing in only five journals. CONCLUSIONS The fact that the majority of abstracts led to full-length articles supports ARVO's goal of a large interdisciplinary appeal with the exchange of ideas among different investigators.