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Abstract Submissions

PREVIOUS PRESENTATIONS/PUBLICATIONS

Abstracts that have been published in any scientific, medical or professional publication or presented at any OBGYN/Urology meeting within the United States or Canada are not eligible. Abstracts presented at a meeting outside of the United States or Canada are eligible. Case reports are also not eligible for consideration. This is not applicable to workshop and roundtable submissions.

Abstracts found to have been previously presented in violation of the above guidelines will be removed. Questions about this can be directed to education@augs.org.

IRB and REB REVIEW

The Institutional Review Board (IRB) in the United States is charged with protecting the rights and welfare of people involved in research. The equivalent entity in Canada is the Research Ethics Board (REB).  IRB/REB approval or exemption is required for submission of all abstracts involving human subject research.

The Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) in the United States is charged with the approval of research using animal subjects. In Canada, this is typically known as the University Animal Care Committee (UACC).

You will be required during online submission to document whether your study has been IRB/REB reviewed or IACUC/UACC reviewed and approved. You will be asked to enter the unique IRB/REB or IACUC/UACC identifier number. If approval is exempted by an IRB/REB or IACUC/UACC, AUGS must receive a copy of the waiver letter by the submission deadline.

FINANCIAL RELATIONSHIP DISCLOSURE

AUGS requires all prospective faculty, authors and co-authors to disclose all financial relationships in the past 24 months with ineligible companies. An abstract submission is NOT COMPLETE until all financial disclosures are made by authors and co-authors.

An ineligible company is any entity whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. For specific examples of ineligible companies visit the ACCME website.

Examples of financial relationships include employee, researcher, consultant, advisor, speaker, independent contractor (including contracted research), royalties or patent beneficiary, executive role, and ownership interest. Individual stocks and stock options should be disclosed; diversified mutual funds do not need to be disclosed. Research funding from ineligible companies should be disclosed by the principal or named investigator even if that individual’s institution receives the research grant and manages the funds.

For each financial relationship, enter the name of the ineligible company and the nature of the financial relationship(s). There is no minimum financial threshold; we ask that you disclose all financial relationships, regardless of the amount, with ineligible companies. You should disclose all financial relationships regardless of the potential relevance of each relationship to the education.

Thank you for your diligence and assistance. If you have questions, please contact Weiyi Zhao, Sr. Director of Education at weiyi@augs.org.

Submission Guidelines

CHARACTER LIMIT

• Title character limit: No more than 80 characters.
• Body character limit: There is a combined limit of 450 words which includes Objective, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. You will be advised of your word count usage throughout the submission process as you save and move to the next step. This count does not include titles, authors, or affiliations.
• Figures and Tables Limit: You may add a total of two figures and/or tables. Tables must be submitted as a Word document. DO NOT include legends with your figure/table upload. All legends should appear in the body of the abstract, at the end of the Conclusions section, and be clearly labeled. Figures and tables cannot be in color. Figures and tables will appear at the end of your abstract, both on the proof and for publication.

All abstracts should be submitted in English. Omit ALL person, group, and institutional names and geographical references in the body of the abstract. Abstracts that do not adhere to this and unblind themselves within the body of the abstract are subject to downgrading.

VIDEO ABSTRACT
Videos that address topics such as surgical tips, anatomy, or educational topics are encouraged. Please ensure that your videos protect patient anonymity and integrity. The time limit for a video is 8 minutes. Video abstract submission should contain a brief description of the Objectives, Methods, and Clinical Relevance of the video submission with a maximum word count of 450 words (same as abstract).

The below criteria must be met for acceptance of video presentation.

• Maximum duration: 8 minutes
• File cannot be above 2.0 GB
• Videos must have English captions or narration
• Avoid any background music that is too loud or distracting
• Please ensure that your videos protect patient anonymity and integrity.
• Acceptable file formats are .mp3, .avi, .mov, .mpg, .mp4 and .m4a

Please remove all product logos/names from your video. If a video is submitted with the product name/logo included, the video will be disqualified from consideration.

LATE-BREAKING SCIENCE
These submissions are intended to allow for the timely presentation of high-impact trials to PFD Week attendees. It is expected that these abstract submissions are from studies for which no preliminary data were available at the time of the abstract submission deadline. Late-breaking science is considered for oral presentations only and are not eligible for other types of presentation (e.g., video, poster). Late-breaking submissions, upon acceptance, will be invited to be presented at the podium but will not be published in the program book or Urogynecology.

Priority will be given (in the following order) to:

• Results of phase III clinical trials
• Results of phase II clinical trials
• Extraordinary findings from a basic science investigation
• Interim analyses of phase III trials that describe important secondary endpoints
• Prospective multi-institution clinical trials

We reserve the option not to accept any late-breaking science abstracts if the above criteria are not satisfied by any submissions.

Preparing for Submission

TITLE

• Please make sure you double-check your title, as it will be published as submitted.
• Use mixed case for title – do not use all caps or all lowercase.
• Do not put your title in quotation marks.
• Titles are limited to 2 lines and no more than 80 characters.
• Do not include the trial group name in the title of the abstract.

AUTHORS

• Before starting your submission, be sure to notify ALL co-authors and gather their titles, institution names and preferred email addresses.
• Create a complete list of co-authors for this submission. Consult with your co-authors on how they would like their names to appear.
• No submission will be considered completed until all co-authors have submitted their financial disclosures.
• As the submitter, you are automatically considered the Presenting Author.

Responsibilities of the Presenting Author
The submitting author listed for each abstract serves as the presenting author and as the primary contact for all correspondence regarding the abstract. The presenting author is responsible for the following:

• Ensuring that all authors have read the abstract and agreed to be co-authors.
• Notifying all co-authors of any additions, deletions, and changes to the program, as may be communicated by AUGS.

PRESENTER SUBSTITUTIONS
The person submitting the abstract will be automatically considered the presenter and must be involved in the research. All oral presentations are expected to be presented onsite in Vancouver, Canada. Presenter substitutions will only be allowed for significant changes in life circumstances or acute illness and require request and approval. Switching to a virtual presentation will not be possible.

ABSTRACT BODY
Omit all names and geographical references in the body of the abstract. Organize content in sections as follows:

• Objective: Describe the research objective
• Methods: Describe the research methodology used
• Results: Summarize evaluation, including outcome data
• Conclusions (include figure legends at the end): State the conclusions drawn from the results. Please include your figure legends in this section at the end. 

PRODUCT NAME USAGE

• For purposes of blind scoring, institutional names must be omitted whenever possible in the title and body of the abstract.
• Avoid the use of commercially branded names. Use scientific or generic names when referring to products
• If a specific device is only identifiable by its trade name, then this should appear in brackets after a generic description of the device.
• Should it be necessary to use a trade name, then the trade names of all similar products or those within a class must be used.

PROOFREAD YOUR ABSTRACT

• Carefully proofread your abstract. Make sure all special characters and formatting are displaying properly in your proof.
• You may return to the online submission site to revise your abstract until April 7, 2025, at 8:00 PM, ET.
• When making edits to a submitted abstract, you must save and re-submit by clicking the "continue" button.
• After this date/time, the submission site will close, and no additional changes/edits can be made.
• If you have not completed all required sections, including financial disclosures for all co-authors, you will not be able to complete your submission.

After Submission

ABSTRACT REVIEW

• After the submission site closes, completed abstracts will be peer-reviewed.
• All abstracts will be blinded for review without knowledge of the author/s or institution/s.
• Accepted abstracts will be selected as full oral (8 min + 2 min Q&A), short oral (4 min), video presentation (under 10 min including Q&A), rapid fire talk (3 min), e-poster (presented virtually) or video poster (presented virtually).
• Final assignments will be decided by the PFD Week Review Committee.

ABSTRACT ACCEPTANCE/REJECTION NOTIFICATIONS

• You will be notified electronically of the acceptance of your abstract during the week of May 26, 2025.
• This notification will include the date and time of your session as well as the type of presentation.
• Only the presenting author will be notified. It is the responsibility of the presenting author to notify all co-authors.

FULL PAPERS

Abstracts selected for oral presentations will have the option to submit a full scientific manuscript for consideration for one of the following awards:

• Best Overall Paper Award
• Best Clinical Paper Award
• Best Basic Science Paper Award
• Best Video Award
• Best Paper by a Student or Resident Award
• Best Paper by a PhD Candidate or Postdoc Award
• Best Paper by a Fellow Award

This manuscript will be submitted to the program committee for use of determining abstract awards and session moderation. It will not be automatically submitted to a journal for publication but is highly encouraged.

WITHDRAWALS

• Presenting authors may withdraw an abstract submission at any time before the abstract submission deadline. To withdraw a submission, log into the abstract submission site, click on the title of the abstract and update the status to “withdraw”. After the submission deadline, contact education@augs.org to withdraw.
• In order for an accepted abstract to be withdrawn and not appear in publication, notification must be received by September 6, 2025.
• After September 6, 2025, withdrawals are still accepted but abstracts may still appear in annual meeting materials.