Abstract
Objective
To assess whether conference abstracts that report higher estimates of diagnostic
accuracy are more likely to reach full-text publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
Study Design and Setting
We identified abstracts describing diagnostic accuracy studies, presented between
2007 and 2010 at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) Annual
Meeting. We extracted reported estimates of sensitivity, specificity, area under the
receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR). Between
May and July 2015, we searched MEDLINE and EMBASE to identify corresponding full-text
publications; if needed, we contacted abstract authors. Cox regression was performed
to estimate associations with full-text publication, where sensitivity, specificity,
and AUC were logit transformed, and DOR was log transformed.
Results
A full-text publication was found for 226/399 (57%) included abstracts. There was
no association between reported estimates of sensitivity and full-text publication
(hazard ratio [HR] 1.09 [95% confidence interval {CI} 0.98, 1.22]). The same applied
to specificity (HR 1.00 [95% CI 0.88, 1.14]), AUC (HR 0.91 [95% CI 0.75, 1.09]), and
DOR (HR 1.01 [95% CI 0.94, 1.09]).
Conclusion
Almost half of the ARVO conference abstracts describing diagnostic accuracy studies
did not reach full-text publication. Studies in abstracts that mentioned higher accuracy
estimates were not more likely to be reported in a full-text publication.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: June 13, 2016
Accepted:
June 3,
2016
Footnotes
Funding: K.D. is the principal investigator, and I.J.S. is a coinvestigator, of a grant to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health from the National Eye Institute (U01EY020522), which contributes to their salary.
Conflicts of interest: None.
Identification
Copyright
© 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
