To evaluate the publication rate of scientific abstracts that were presented orally at the 2008, 2009, and 2010 annual meetings of the French Society of Radiology by French radiologists, and to perform a French regional analysis.

Orally presented abstracts were identified by examining online abstract books of the 2008, 2009, and 2010 annual meetings of the French Society of Radiology, and cross-checked by reviewing the paper version of abstracts for the same period. Only abstracts from French teams were selected. The administrative region of submission was noted for each abstract and for each region the total population, the number of active radiologists, the number of active members of the French Society of Radiology and the number of academic radiologists were noted. Imaging subspecialties were also noted.

625 abstracts were identified resulting in 268 publications (publication rate: 43%). The median number of presentations and publications per region was 18 (range: 1–255) and 7 (range: 0–101), respectively. The ratio per million inhabitants was 7.5 and 3 respectively. The median number of presentations and publications per 100 active radiologists (respectively members of the FSR) was 7 and 3 (respectively 10 and 4). The median number of presentations and publications per academic radiologist were 2.6, and 1.2, respectively. The regional variations for each indicator were high (40–180%). Three subspecialties had a publication rate of more than 50%: thoracic imaging (58%), abdominal imaging (52%), and genitourinary imaging (51%).

The publication rate of orally presented French scientific abstracts was high, with important variations according to the regions of origin and imaging subspecialties.