Theman 2014.

Methods	Identification of subsequent full‐length publications Searched electronic database PubMed in August 2013 Search completed by investigator Searched by all authors, keywords, and title Matched abstract to full‐length publication by All authors Methodology Results Country of origin Hypothesis Study design Study groups Conclusions
Data	Included 719 abstracts presented at the 2000 to 2010 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meetings Included all abstracts from oral presentation on hand, wrist, and brachial plexus topics excluding all that focused primarily on elbow/shoulder joint and those from resident and fellows conferences
Comparisons	Proportion of abstracts published, overall and by meeting Mean and median time to publication, overall and by meeting Cumulative proportion of abstracts published
Outcomes	393 of 719 abstracts published 56/109 abstracts presented at the 2000 meeting, 30/69 at the 2001 meeting, 36/64 at the 2002 meeting, 13/36 at the 2003 meeting, 40/80 at the 2004 meeting, 21/53 at the 2005 meeting, 17/35 at the 2006 meeting, 40/88 at the 2007 meeting, 38/62 at the 2008 meeting, 32/58 at the 2009 meeting, and 33/65 at the 2010 meeting published Proportion of abstracts published by time Mean time to publication = 18 months (range = ‐12 to 122 months), overall Mean time to publication = 22 months (maximum = 120 months) for the 2000 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting Mean time to publication = 25 months (maximum = 96 months) for the 2001 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting Mean time to publication = 22 months (maximum = 120 months) for the 2002 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting Mean time to publication = 15 months (maximum = 48 months) for the 2003 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting Mean time to publication = 20 months (maximum = 84 months) for the 2004 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting Mean time to publication = 19 months (maximum = 60 months) for the 2005 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting Mean time to publication = 21 months (maximum = 84 months) for the 2006 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting Mean time to publication = 15 months (maximum = 60 months) for the 2007 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting Mean time to publication = 12 months (maximum = 48 months) for the 2008 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting Mean time to publication = 15 months (maximum = 48 months) for the 2009 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting Mean time to publication = 13 months (maximum = 36 months) for the 2010 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting Median time to publication = 14 months (IQR = 14 to 64 months), overall Median time to publication = 15 months (IQR = 10 to 78 months) for the 2000 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting Median time to publication = 14 months (IQR = 12 to 101 months) for the 2001 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting Median time to publication = 14 months (IQR = 21 to 69 months) for the 2002 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting Median time to publication = 15 months (IQR = 7 to 68 months) for the 2003 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting Median time to publication = 18 months (IQR = 11 to 69 months) for the 2004 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting) Median time to publication = 11 months (IQR = 13 to 84 months) for the 2005 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting Median time to publication = 20 months (IQR = 30 to 66 months) for the 2006 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting Median time to publication = 14 months (IQR = 18 to 51 months) for the 2007 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting Median time to publication = 11 months (IQR = 15 to 44 months) for the 2008 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting Median time to publication = 13 months (IQR = 17 to 66 months) for the 2009 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting Median time to publication = 12 months (IQR = 17 to 55 months) for the 2010 American Society for Surgery of the Hand meeting Cumulative proportion of abstracts published at 120 months showed proportion published = 49% (352/719 abstracts) No factors other than meeting year related to proportion of abstracts published reported
Notes	Surgery ‐ hand Funding not reported
Risk of bias
Item	Authors' judgement	Description
Sampling method?	Yes	Included all abstracts from oral presentation on a specific topic.
Search for publications?	No	Searched only 1 database.
Follow‐up time?	Yes	All meetings before 2010 had at least 48 months follow‐up. The meeting in 2010 only had 36 months follow‐up.
Matching?	Yes	Matched by 8 different criteria.
Adjustment for confounding?	No	Examined association of meeting year with publication using stratified analysis.