Introduction: Academic conferences are excellent opportunities to showcase innovative research. However, the same abstract may be submitted to multiple conferences or contain previously published material. This violates exclusive submission criteria of most medical meetings. Duplicate publications account for over 15% of scholarly article retractions with that number increasing in recent years. This study aimed to investigate the publication ethics of abstracts presented at a sectional American Urological Association (AUA) conference. Methods: Mid-Atlantic AUA (MA-AUA) abstract submissions from 2008 to 2021 were collected from the Canadian Journal of Urology website. Abstract titles and authors were searched in a standard fashion using PubMed, Google Scholar, and Google. Characteristic data was collected, including manuscript publication date and journal of publication. Results: Over the study interval, 1372 abstracts were presented. Of these, 466 (34.0%) were published as manuscripts while 906 (66.0%) did not get published. Of the published manuscripts, 59 (12.7%) were published prior to the conference date. The mean time of publication prior to the conference was 5 ± 4.8 months (range, 1 – 31 months; Figure). Of the 906 presented abstracts that were not published as manuscripts, 102 (11.3%) were submitted as abstracts to other academic meetings either before or after the MA-AUA conference. Categories with the most manuscripts published prior to the meeting included prostate cancer, kidney cancer, and general trends and socioeconomics. Conclusions: Most research presented at an AUA sectional meeting over the past 14 years was novel and abided by standard publication practices. However, double abstract submissions (11%) and previously published manuscript data (13%) remain an issue within urologic academia. Peer reviewers for academic conferences cannot be expected to know if an abstract had already been published or presented. Submitting authors should abide by ethical submission practices. SOURCE OF Funding: None
