Abstracts

LATE-BREAKING ABSTRACT SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW CLOSED! 

For the first time, PRES is opening a call for late breaking abstracts and encourages authors to submit their late breaking abstract before 12 August 2020, 23:59 CET, to be considered for  the 2020 PReS  e-congress.

Late breaking abstracts are accepted in any topic listed in the guidelines and must be highly competitive. The selection criteria will be stricter than regular abstract submission.

Kindly note that a late-breaking abstract should present data that are high impact, ground breaking, innovative, and newsworthy. This data should not have been presented or published elsewhere.

Submission of a late-breaking abstract should not be a mechanism to update data or revise an existing regular abstract – any suspicion of a re-submission of a regular abstract that was already submitted, will be automatically rejected.

Guidelines for Abstract Submission

1. Important dates & Deadlines 

Submission opening: Tuesday 3 March 2020
Submission deadline:  Wednesday 12 August 2020 (23:59 CET)
Notifications to submitters:  Early-September 2020
 
2. Technical Information
Internet Explorer 7.0 or higher, Mozilla Firefox 3.0 or higher are required. JavaScripts and cookies need to be enabled in your browser.  
 
3. General
Abstracts can only be submitted on-line via the on-line abstract submission form. Submission by fax, e-mail or courier will not be accepted. Abstracts must be submitted in English.
Presenters of an accepted abstract will benefit from a special extension of the early bird registration deadline after notification of acceptance are sent.
 
4. Publications
Accepted abstracts will be published in the Supplement of the Pediatric Rheumatology Journal by BMC and will be available on the Congress website two weeks prior to the event.

Submission Process

• Delegates, who would like to present their work at the Congress, either orally or as a poster, are invited to submit an abstract for consideration by the Abstract Grading Committee. 
   

• Abstracts must describe original, previously unpublished work. Abstracts submitted for publication in the Supplement must be original, and must not have been already published elsewhere, or be under consideration for publication elsewhere.
   

• Scheduling of poster sessions and abstract presentations is at the discretion of the Scientific Programme Committee. Abstracts will be organised into sessions using the topics chosen by the submitter in the online system. While delegates may indicate their preference for oral or poster presentation, the final decision is made by the Scientific Programme Committee. While every attempt will be made to schedule abstracts according to the requests of authors, requests for oral presentations cannot be guaranteed.
   

• Abstract submission is only possible via Internet. Please carefully read all the instructions available on the Internet and on the on-line abstract submission system before preparing your abstract.
   

• The creation of a user account is required for the submission of an abstract. The account only needs to be created once and can be re-used for future abstract submission and registration to the congress.
   

• Abstracts can be saved in “Draft status” to be re-edited and modified until the submission deadline.
   

• PReS is not responsible for errors in the abstract submission. It is important that you read your text to ensure accuracy with no spelling, grammatical or scientific errors. No corrections will be accepted after the abstract submission deadline and the abstract will be published exactly as submitted. PReS will not translate any abstract. It will be published, if accepted, as submitted in English.
   

• Abstracts fulfilling all criteria can be saved in “Final submission” status. Only abstracts in “Final submission” status will be considered for the Congress.

Topics

T01   JIA (oligo, poly, psoriatic)
T02   Systemic JIA
T03   Spondyloarthritis (SpA) and enthesitis related arthritis (ERA)
T04   Autoinflammatory diseases
T05   Uveitis
T06   Immunodeficiency and infection related arthritis
T07   Macrophage activation syndrome
T08   Imaging
T09   Disease outcome and transition
T10   Treatment
T11   Bone in rheumatic diseases
T12   Genetics, genomics and environment
T13   Immunoregulation and basic science
T14   Juvenile dermatomyositis
T15   Systemic lupus erythematosus and antiphospholipid syndrome
T16   New diseases
T17   Scleroderma and related syndromes
T18   Vasculitides
T19   Miscellaneous rheumatic diseases
T20   Psycho-social aspects and rehabilitation
T21   e-health and digital health applications
T22   Pain, fatigue, disease experience and quality of life
T23   Patient/parent organisation initiatives
T24   COVID-19 (Coronavirus)

Commitment

Submission of an abstract constitutes a formal commitment by the presenting author to attend the Congress and present the abstract (if accepted) orally or as a poster in the session and at the time assigned by the Scientific Programme Committee.  
 
Expenses associated with the preparation, submission and presentation of an abstract are the responsibility of the presenting authors.
 
All submitting authors must consent to the Declaration Statement on behalf of her/his co-authors in order for the abstract to be accepted for submission. This includes the certification that any work with human or animal subjects related in this abstract complies with the guiding principles for experimental procedures as set forth in the Declaration of Helsinki and related publications.

Regulations

Abstracts will be published in Pediatric Rheumatology (only if accepted).  
 
For standardisation, the total length of the abstract must not exceed 4000 printable characters including spaces (approx. 600 words) and 90 line counts. Characters counts includes: the title, body of the abstracts, authors details and tables.
 
The body of the abstract will be structured as follows with the following subtitles:
- Introduction
- Objectives
- Methods
- Results
- Conclusion
 
1 Table may be included in the “Results” section with the following criteria:  - Maximum number of rows: 10 - Maximum number of columns: 10
 
Image or graph may not be included

Guidelines

•  The abstract Title should clearly define the content of the paper. There should be no full stop at the end of the title.
   

•  It is preferable that the Introduction is stated in one sentence, the Objectives and Methods kept to a brief description, that the Results are summarised and presented in sufficient detail to support the Conclusion. Note that it is not recommended to postulate that “the results will be discussed during the oral presentation” or that “other data will be presented later”.
   

•  Please refer to the online abstract submission platform for further details regarding abstract content and style, including submission of Greek characters, tables and figures. Note that copy-pasting is enabled with automatic update of the font style.
   

•  Use standard abbreviations where appropriate. Include any other abbreviations in brackets after the full word the first time it appears. Abbreviations should follow MEDLINE standards.
   

•  Authors: All author names should be included in the order they will appear in publication. The name of the presenting author will be identified with an asterisk. Ensure that the correct spelling is confirmed for all contributing authors, no amendment will be permitted after the submission deadline.
   

•  Affiliations: Each affiliation should be specified. Department names from the same affiliation will be merged for a single entry. Affiliations will include the primary employer or institution name, and location (city, state or province, country).
   

•  Copyright: All contributors must provide original material to be submitted for publication in paediatric Rheumatology. Authors retain copyright and are free to reuse their own work with full citation to the original published work.
   

•  Consent to Publish: If the abstract contains details relating to individual participants (for example a case report), written informed consent for the publication of these details must be obtained from the participants and a statement to this effect should appear at the end of the abstract. Our guidelines for consent statements can be found here: www.biomedcentral.com/about/editorialpolicies#Ethics. If the patient is deceased consent for publication should be obtained from the next of kin and if the patient is under 16 consent should be obtained from the parent or guardian.
   

•   Permissions: All material should be original and not previously published. If a table has been published before, the authors must obtain written permission to reproduce the material in both print and electronic formats from the copyright owner. This rule applies for data, quoted text and other materials taken from previously published works not in the public domain. The original source should must be cited in the table footnote.
   

•   References: References should be laid out at the end of the abstract in Vancouver style and preceded by the relevant reference number.
   

•   Trial registration: If the abstract reports the results of a controlled health care intervention, the trial registry, along with the unique identifying number (e.g. Trial registration: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN37824458) should be listed at the end of the abstract. BioMed Central supports prospective registration and numbering of randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Authors of reports of controlled trials of health care interventions must register their trial in a suitable publicly accessible registry prior to submission. The trial registers that currently meet all of the ICMJE guidelines can be found at www.icmje.org/about-icmje/faqs/clinical-trialsregistration/.
   

•   IMPORTANT INFORMATION: Biomed Central will run a check of your submission trough iThenticate software. Any abstract containing a high portion of content already published will be automatically rejected.

Disclosure of Conflict of Interest

•  All submitting authors must disclose, on behalf of all other authors of the abstracts, any conflicts of interest during the online abstract submission or have their work refused at the discretion of the organising committee. All disclosures will be published in the abstracts.
   

•   When you submit your abstract online, you will be asked to indicate if the authors now or in the past 12 months have had a significant financial interest or other relationship with commercial companies or other entities whose products or services you may discuss in your presentation, or who are supporting this activity.
   

•   For any of the following relationship categories that apply to each author, you will be asked to indicate the relationship and name the commercial entities involved:
  1. Shareholder
  2. Grant/ research support
  3. Consultant
  4. Employee
  5. Paid instructor
  6. Speaker bureau
   

•   We request all presenters to cooperate by declaring any potential conflict of interest on their slides or posters.

Abstract Receipt Confirmation

The final step of the online submission process generates a confirmation email that your abstract has been received, which you should print for your personal record. The confirmation email represents the successful submission of an abstract for the review process. Each author will receive a confirmation of the submission together with a copy of the abstract.

Abstract Reviewing

All abstracts will be subjected to a single blind review process by a panel of international experts in the field. Mean scores will be calculated for each abstract and based on this they will be allocated to oral or poster presentations, or they may be rejected. Each abstract will be scored based on the following criteria: scientific merit, suitable sample size, proper statistical analysis, adherence to instructions and originality of the work.

Abstract Assignment Notification

Only submitting authors will be notified by e-mail in mid-July 2018, if their abstract has been accepted. Date, time and type of their presentation will be confirmed. It is the responsibility of the submitter to notify the other co-authors of the outcome decision. PReS and the Scientific Programme Committee do not correspond on the reasons of acceptance/rejection of an abstract. Instructions for oral presentation and poster preparation will be e-mailed in due course to the submitting authors.

Withdrawal of an Abstract

Any request for withdrawal should be sent to pres.abs@mci-group.com before end of June 2020. The submitter must clearly explain the reason for withdrawal – failure to present an abstract at the congress may lead to systematic rejection of your submission for future congresses.