• Paul McConnell, Nechama Kaufman, De Hert Stefan S, Charles Marc Samama, Zsolt Molnar, and Sharon Einav.
• From the Department of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine, Royal Alexandra Hospital, Paisley, UK (PMc), the Intensive Care Unit, Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel (NK), the Department of Anaesthesiology, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium (SDH), the Department of Anaesthesiology, Cochin and Hôtel-Dieu University Hospitals, Paris Descartes University, Paris, France (MCS), the Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Therapy, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary (ZM), and the Department of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, Shaare Zedek Medical Center and Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine, Jerusalem, Israel (SE).
• Eur J Anaesthesiol. 2017 Dec 1; 34 (12): 824-830.

BackgroundThe annual congress of the European Society of Anaesthesiology (ESA) is one of the largest anaesthesia congresses in the world and exhibits more than 1200 abstracts annually.ObjectivesThe aims of this study were to quantify the frequency of inadequate evidence of ethical approval for abstracts submitted to the ESA congress and to examine whether abstracts without appropriate ethical approval were subsequently accepted.Design And SettingAll abstracts submitted in 2015 were adjudicated according to European ethical criteria.Main Outcome MeasureThe proportion of submitted abstracts that lacked evidence of appropriate ethics committee approval. Secondary outcomes included the proportion of accepted abstract that lacked evidence of appropriate ethical approval; the proportion of correctly identified case reports; the proportion of accepted abstracts that lacked evidence of appropriate ethics committee approvals corresponding to location (within/outside Europe); and the proportion of accepted abstracts that lacked evidence of appropriate ethics committee approvals corresponding to a specific area of research.ResultsIn total, 1792 abstracts were reviewed and 1572 (87.7%) involved humans. In 527 (29.4%), the authors failed to demonstrate adequate ethical approval with higher rates in abstracts submitted from Europe (32.1%) than the rest of the world (23.5%), P < 0.001. Appropriate approvals were reported in 80% of animal studies, 74.6% of case reports and 57.6% of human research studies. The proportion with evidence of adequate ethical approvals was lowest in obstetric anaesthesia and emergency medicine. Case reports were identified correctly 98.6% (347/352) of the time, but 14 research abstracts were assigned wrongly to this category. Most abstracts (68.5%, 361/527) lacking evidence of ethical approval were still accepted for presentation.ConclusionResearch abstracts lacking evidence of appropriate ethical approval are common worldwide. Societies shoulder the responsibility for ensuring that only ethically sound abstracts are presented at meetings. Abstract submission systems must include mechanisms to ensure that publications are accepted and judged not just on scientific merit but also on adherence to best ethical practice.

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