Study characteristics of abstracts presented at the annual meetings of the southeastern section of the American Urological Association (1996-2005).

PURPOSE: We determined study characteristics, authorship and institutional origin of studies presented in abstract form at the Southeastern Section of the American Urological Association annual meetings and identified predictors of full text publication. MATERIALS AND METHODS: All abstracts of poster and podium presentations from the Southeastern Section of the American Urological Association annual meetings from 1996 to 2005 were reviewed. A standardized evaluation form was developed and tested in 2 subsets of 50 abstracts, and then applied by 2 individual reviewers with specific coding instructions. Predictor variables analyzed included study origin, design, topic, domain, presentation form, number of patients, reporting of statistical analysis and gender. Univariate and multivariate analysis was applied using SPSS version 14.0. RESULTS: A total of 1,195 abstracts were found eligible for review. The mean number of abstracts presented per year was 120 +/- 16 (range 107 to 146). In clinical studies (1,068) approximately three-quarters of the abstracts reported case series (801, 75.0%). Cohort studies accounted for 11.2% of the abstracts and 4.0% were randomized controlled trials or systematic reviews/meta-analyses. Median followup was 64 months (range 17 to 126) and the overall publication rate was 33.5%. First and senior female authorship were identified in 6.2% (74) and 5.4% (64) of abstracts presented, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: A majority of studies presented at the Southeastern Section of the American Urological Association annual meetings continue to represent small case series that may not be well suited to guide clinical decision making. Only a third of studies are subsequently published in the peer reviewed literature. The percentage of abstracts with female authorship remains low suggesting that increased efforts to involve women in urological research are indicated

Combination therapy for renal cell cancer: what are possible options?

Antiangiogenic therapy has shown promise in the treatment of patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Two classes of antiangiogenic drugs, the anti-vascular endothelial growth factor antibody bevacizumab and the tyrosine kinase inhibitors sorafenib, sunitinib and pazopanib, have shown efficacy in patients with RCC and are approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for treatment of this cancer. In practice, the clinical benefit of antiangiogenic drugs in RCC has been heterogeneous, and in patients who do respond, benefits are modest and/or short-lived. To improve efficacy, combination targeted therapy has been attempted, but with either very limited additional efficacy or nontolerable toxicities. Recent advances in the molecular understanding of tumor angiogenesis and mechanism of resistance, along with the rapid development of targeted drug discovery, have made it possible to further explore novel combination therapy for RCC