Abstract presentations of scientific information at meetings are important for broadcasting new information. Publication of these studies should be the final goal, but minimal data exist documenting publication rates, especially for paediatric sub-speciality meetings. The goal of this study was to document the manuscript publication rate for paediatric cardiac echocardiography abstracts and to determine whether there were differences between abstracts that were published versus not published.

Paediatric cardiac echocardiography abstracts presented from 2007 to 2011 at the American Society of Echocardiography Meetings were reviewed. Characteristics of the abstracts were noted. A Medline/Pubmed search was performed using keywords, first author, and senior author criteria to determine publication. Fisher’s exact tests or χ2 tests were used for analysis.

A total of 194 abstracts were reviewed. In all, 27 abstracts were oral presentations and 167 were poster presentations. A total of 124 abstracts were prospective studies and 70 were retrospective studies; 11 abstracts were basic science studies and 183 were clinical studies. Altogether, 25 abstracts dealt with three-dimensional echocardiography, 15 with fetal echocardiography, 56 with deformation analysis, 79 with standard transthoracic echocardiography, and 19 were in the other category. A total of 73 abstracts were subsequently published – with a 37.6% publication rate – 2.1±1.7 years after initial presentation. There were no significant differences in publication rates based on the above-noted variables.

A paediatric cardiac echocardiography abstract publication rate of 37.6% is comparable to previous published publication rates for other meetings. No differences in variables analysed were noted between published versus unpublished abstracts.