Introduction: Publication rate from orthopedic conferences is reported to be as high as 58% (AAHKS). However, national orthopedic meeting, is a stage where many local papers are presented that do not necessary have an interest to the broad orthopedic forums and thus are not published. We conducted this study to examine the publication rate of papers presented in the National Orthopaedic Association meetings after 5 and 10 years.

Materials and Methods: We reviewed abstract books of National Orthopaedic Association meetings in the year 2003 and years 1998–1999. All invited and plenary lectures were excluded. Pubmed search was performed using authors’ names to find similar publications. The similarity was then rechecked by another author. The specific orthopedic subspeciality was noted; in some cases the same presentation could be classified in two different subspecialities.

Results: 160 works were presented in the years 1998–1999 and 36 of them were published (22.5%). In 2003 27 out of 105 presented works were published (25.7%). In different subspecialities, the publication rate was 48% for pediatric orthopedics, 45% for foot and ankle, 33% for hand, 29% for shoulder and elbow, 27% for basic research, 22% for spine, 21% for trauma, 19% for oncology, 18% for hip and knee and 10% for sports medicine. 14 published papers (22%) were from international institutions. Six papers were published before the presentation at the meeting (two at each year).

Conclusion: The publication rate of papers presented at the National Orthopedic Association meetings is around 24% and most are published at the first five years. However, many of these published papers are not from international institutions. More effort should be put both in better selection of presentations and in supporting young researchers for bringing their work to publication.