By Armand Keating, MD
2007-09-01
Dr. Keating is Director, Division of Hematology, and Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. He also serves as Chief of Medical Services and Head of the Department of Medical Oncology and Hematology at Princess Margaret Hospital/Ontario Cancer Institute and holds the Epstein Chair in Cell Therapy and Transplantation. He is Secretary of ASH.
The ASH Program Committee recognizes that the results of some exciting research may not be available by the abstract submission deadline. This year, ASH offers a new late-breaking abstract deadline of October 9, 2007, for abstracts that highlight novel and substantive studies of high impact. The late-breaking abstract submission program will be available October 1 through October 9 on the ASH Web site.
The selection process will be competitive; no more than six abstracts will be selected for oral presentation in a late-breaking abstracts simultaneous session on Tuesday morning of the ASH annual meeting. Late-breaking abstracts will not be eligible for oral presentation in the usual simultaneous sessions, nor will they be eligible for poster presentation.
Late-breaking abstracts will not be chosen from among the abstracts submitted by the general submission deadline, but all other ASH policies stated in the general submission Call for Abstracts still apply. Only the accepted late-breaking abstracts will be published online and in the On-Site Program Book.
Examples of suitable late-breaking abstracts might include the results of a practice-changing prospective clinical trial or the discovery of a mechanism underlying or characterizing a disease process (such as the JAK2 mutation in myeloproliferative disorders) that were not fully available by the general abstract submission deadline. The late-breaking abstract deadline is not intended to be merely an extension of the general submission deadline and will focus on capturing abstracts with ground-breaking and novel data that otherwise could not be presented at the annual meeting. Investigators with data that are substantive and novel and available earlier must submit their abstract by the general submission deadline.
The new deadline for late-breaking abstracts is being introduced on a pilot basis in 2007 and will be evaluated by the Program Committee to determine whether it will be continued. The goal of this new initiative will be met if the ASH meeting is enriched with outstanding studies that are completed after the general abstract submission deadline.
If you have questions about the late-breaking abstracts deadline, please contact Melissa Connolly, Annual Meeting Program Specialist, at mconnolly@hematology.org.
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