[The fate of the oral communications presented at the SIFUD congress (2006-2012)].

INTRODUCTION: The subjects presented at scientific congresses often remain confidential because of the non-indexation of the communications. A subsequent publication is necessary for the dissemination of knowledge. The value of a congress is somehow rated by the level of its publications.

OBJECTIVES: To analyze, quantitatively and qualitatively, the fate of the communications presented orally at the annual meeting of the SIFUD-PP between 2006 and 2012.

METHOD: From the authors' names and the title of the communications presented orally at congresses between 2006 and 2012, we investigated if those communications had resulted as an indexed publication PubMed/Medline until April 2015. We studied anonymously the correlation between the data presented in the communication provided at the SIFUD-PP congress and the data published in the final article. We evaluated the "value" of the publication according to the language of publication (French/English), the ranking of the magazine (A or B versus others), and the number of citations of the article in Google-Scholar.

RESULTS: A total of 270 oral communications were presented at the SIFUD congress between 2006 and 2012, so an average of 38.5 (±15) per year. Globally, 110 articles (40%) have been published in an indexed journal PubMed/MedLine to date (April 2015). Note that 10 articles of the oral communications (8%) were published before the congress. The average time of publication was 22 months±15 months. In terms of the language of publication, 79 articles (71%) were published in English magazines. They were published in 31 different journals (49 articles [44%] in urology, 14 articles [12%] in gynecology, 12 articles [10%] in urogynecology, 11 articles [10%] in coloproctology, 16 articles [14%] in neuro-urology and physical medicine and rehabilitation, 3 articles [2%] in sexology). Sixty-three articles (57%) were published in journals with an impact factor (IF) higher than 2 and 39 articles (35%) were published in journals of rank A or B.

DISCUSSION: The rate of publications of oral communications varies according to specialties and the type of the congress. For example, the rate of the published communications at the ICS Congress (International Continence Society) in 2003 was 61% and of the AFU (French Association of Urology) in 2000, was 34.5%. The rate of publication of the oral abstracts presented at the SIFUD (40% over the period 2006-2012) is comparable to other national congresses but slightly inferior to those of international congresses. Several hypotheses may explain the non-publication of the oral communications (quitting the project, communication about preliminary results, refused publication by many journals) and unfortunately we do not have those results. We should get back individually to the submitters to know the reasons for non-publication of their works.

CONCLUSION: In the end, 40% of the oral communication presented at the annual congress of the SIFUD were published in an indexed journals PubMed/MedLine. Seventy-one percent of them are in English.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 4.