"Knee osteoarthritis and current research for evidence-are we on the right way?"

PURPOSE: An estimated 85% of research is of limited value or wasted because the wrong research questions are addressed. We sought to identify research gaps using American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeon (AAOS) clinical practice guidelines Treatment of Osteoarthritis of the Knee and Surgical Management of Osteoarthritis of the Knee. Using these recommendations, we conducted searches of ClinicalTrials.gov to discover the extent to which new and ongoing research addresses areas of deficiency. METHODS: For each recommendation in the AAOS guidelines, we created participants, intervention, comparator, outcomes questions, and search strings using a systematic process. Searches were then conducted of ClinicalTrials.gov to locate relevant studies. RESULTS: Our searches of ClinicalTrials.gov returned 945 studies for surgical and 1416 for non-surgical management of osteoarthritis. Of the 945 studies returned using our search string for surgical trials, 186 (20%) were relevant to 30 (79%) of the 38 recommendations made within the surgical management guideline. Of the 1416 studies returned using our search for non-surgical trials, 360 (25%) were relevant to 16 (89%) of the 18 recommendations made within the conservative management guideline. CONCLUSIONS: The development of clinical practice guidelines is a unique opportunity to simultaneously redefine day-to-day decision-making and provide a critical analysis of the status of the literature. Upon our search of the literature since the guidelines introduction, we have found that some inconclusive areas have received more attention than others. Our results should guide researchers towards conducting research on the topics most in need and, by doing so, strengthen the clinical practice guideline recommendations.

Publication Rates in Podium and Poster Presentations at the 2012-2014 American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons Annual Meetings.

BACKGROUND: Subspecialty conferences are an important forum for disseminating the latest research relevant to clinical practice. The purpose of this study was to identify publication rates in podium and poster abstracts for the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons (AAHKS) Annual Meeting and to identify the most common journals of publication and the reasons for nonpublication. METHODS: Six hundred ten accepted abstracts (182 podium presentations, 428 posters) from the 2012-2014 AAHKS meetings were searched using Google, Google Scholar, and PubMed. If an abstract could not be found after efforts by multiple searchers, the first author was emailed to determine where the research was published or why it was not published. For articles that were published, the journal, time to publication, and journal impact factor were noted. RESULTS: The overall rate of publication was 71% (436/610). Podium presentations (164/182, 90%) were published at a higher rate than posters (271/428, 63%). The most common journal of publication was the Journal of Arthroplasty (218/436, 50%), followed by Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research (77/436, 18%) and The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (40/436, 9%). Average time to publication was 14.5 months (range, -4 to 44 months) from the date of the conference in which it was presented. CONCLUSION: Presentations at the AAHKS annual meeting have an impressive rate of publication. The research presented at the meeting is impactful and high quality, warranting consideration for future publication.