QUALIFICATIONS: The abstract submission site is open to ACR members and nonmembers; all trainees, young physicians, radiologists, medical physicists, radiation oncologists and representatives from other professions related to the subject categories listed below. 

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DATES: The online abstract submission site will open November 2024 and will close at 11:59pm ET on Jan. 27, 2025.

MODIFICATIONS: Submitters may return to the online system to edit abstracts, add co-authors, revise information, correct typographical errors, tables, graphics or delete a submission at any time before the submission deadline.

NOTIFICATIONS: Disposition notifications will be sent to the first author via email towards the end of February 2025. 

WITHDRAWALS: The deadline to withdraw an accepted abstract will be late March 2025 and the exact date will be noted in the disposition notification. Withdrawals must be made by written request to Sandy Hower, ACR Meeting Manager. Withdrawal of an accepted abstract after this date or failure to submit an e-poster by the deadline may result in the first author and all co-authors’ disqualification from abstract submission for the following ACR Annual Meeting.

AVOCACY, ECONOMICS AND HEALTH POLICY

Advocacy abstracts should pertain to federal and state issues that relate to imaging issues. These abstracts are NOT intended to target patient-related advocacy efforts regarding patient rights protection.

Economics and Health Policy abstracts focus on areas for radiology and radiation oncology services related to coverage of services, reporting/coding and reimbursement for new, revised, and existing services, policy and payment issues related to third party payers, tracking Medicaid managed care organizations, and new payment models.

INFORMATICS AND DATA SCIENCE

Should pertain to one or more of the following areas:

• Artificial intelligence (AI)
  
• Electronic medical records (EMRs)
  
• PACS
  
• Interoperability
  
• CAD
  
• Speech-recognition software
  
• Enterprise imaging
  
• Radiology business analytics
  
• Social media

LEADERSHIP AND PRACTICE MANAGEMENT

May target any of the following areas:

• Strategic initiatives that leaders can use to transition to value-based care.
  
• Operational metrics and processes for optimizing organizational effectiveness.
  
• Economic drivers catalyzing changes in healthcare practice.
  
• Negotiation principles and applications.
  
• Leadership development.
  
• Developing a culture of quality and safety.
  
• Medicolegal/ethical dilemmas.

QUALITY AND SAFETY 

Should pertain to one or more of the following areas:

• Patient safety (including radiation dose optimization).
• MRI safety.
• Contrast media use.
• Diagnostic or breast imaging accreditation and centers of excellence programs.
• Implementation of evidence-based radiology guidelines, practice parameters, technical standards, ACR Appropriateness Criteria® or Appropriate Use Criteria.
• Quality management in radiology practice (including quality improvement tools and methods such as use of data registries and structured reporting).
• Building a quality infrastructure.

TRAINING AND EDUCATION

Training and Education abstracts should introduce aspects of education theory that improve the way we educate trainees and colleagues. Abstracts focused on clinical radiology (i.e., more traditional abstracts seen at other national radiology meetings) will not be considered for this meeting.

The first author must:

• Obtain approval in advance from all co-authors before placing their names on the abstract. Submission of an abstract denotes that co-authors as well as authors have read the abstract, take responsibility for its content and approve that their names appear on the abstract. Failure to obtain approval from all authors will result in immediate rejection of the abstract.
  
• A maximum of ten (10) authors may be listed on each abstract. Authorship credit should only be given if all three of the following criteria are met. Each author must have made substantial contributions to:
  1. Conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data.
  2. Drafting the abstract or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
     
  3. Final approval of the version to be submitted/published.
     
• Include the affiliation for every author. Spell out the institutions in their entirety and capitalize the first letter of each proper name. Examples: Johns Hopkins University, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
  
• Include a concise statement of the research under the ‘purpose’ tab and the overall objectives for the abstract. Define all concepts and abbreviations at first use.
  
• Describe experimental methods briefly (including relevant numbers of patients).
  
• Ensure that patient confidentiality is protected according to HIPAA regulations.
  
• Describe specific findings and analysis of data. Promises such as “to be completed” will not be considered.
  
• Include specific conclusions, with supporting statistical analyses when appropriate. Concluding statements such as “the results will be discussed” will not be considered.
  
• Refrain from submitting multiple abstracts on overlapping facets of the same project unless each abstract has important, novel information and clearly stands on its own. Repetitive abstracts will be rejected.
  
• Remove brand names from the abstract title or body. Use generic terms if referencing a medical device and/or pharmaceutical product.
  
• Abstracts that have been presented at other meetings may be submitted for the ACR Annual meeting if it adheres to current ACR abstract and e-poster guidelines.
  
• Resolve any issues relating to patent matters before submitting the abstract.
  
• Agree to the ACR embargo and copyright policies.
  
• Disclose any financial interest in accordance with ACR disclosure of financial relationships policy. List any financial interests, assistance or relationships with companies, supporters or commercial products that are related to the research (for example, research support, grants, sponsors, stockholder, etc.). Each co-author must complete his/her own financial disclosure and attestation form. NOTE: ACR will not provide continuing medical education credit for e-posters; however, financial disclosures are still required.
  
• Ensure that the first author of an abstract does NOT have a financial interest in the scientific content of the abstract. If the first author has a conflict of interest related to the content, choose a co-author who does not have a relationship to the commercial interests related to the content to be the first author.
  
• Inform all co-authors of the status of the submitted abstract. The first author will receive all notifications and communications related to the accepted abstract(s) and is responsible for informing all co-authors of acceptance at the meeting.

• In accordance with HIPAA regulations, patient confidentiality must be protected. Names, dates of scans, birth dates, ages, medical record numbers, zip codes and identities must not be included in the abstract or on images and graphs.
• The maximum character limit of the abstract is 2,200 including spaces; spaces do count towards the character limit. Use simple fonts.
• Italics, underline, bold, ^superscript and _subscript formatting, Greek characters (both upper and lowercase), scientific characters, charts, tables and graphs are accepted in the body of the abstract only. Do not use these in the title of the abstract.
•  The abstract may contain one small image and one graph. A minimum resolution of 500 dpi and format of tiff, jpg, or .eps is required.
  
• You may type or copy and paste the text of your abstract from a word processing document or a clipboard directly into the online abstract box.
  
• All required fields must be complete, or the submission will be marked incomplete. Abstract submissions with an “incomplete” status cannot be processed.
  
• Do not send multiple submissions of the same abstract. Duplicate abstracts will be rejected. Be sure to combine all the new information into one abstract.
  
• Always keep an original copy of your submitted abstract.
  
• Always proofread your abstract. Accepted abstracts will be published exactly as submitted.
  
• E-posters must give a balanced view of therapeutic options. Brand names of pharmaceuticals and trade names of medical devices cannot be used in the title or body of the abstract. ACR reserves the right to replace proprietary names with generic names.
  
• Institution names should not be included in the title or body of the abstract to keep the review process blind, fair and objective. Alternative language that may be used is "at an institution", or "A multi-institution" study, etc. This does not apply to cooperative research group names such as RTOG, SWOG, ECOG, etc.

The Gold Merit Abstract Awards are presented to the highest scoring abstract in each subject category. Abstract scores are based on quality of the research and content, the accuracy of the research/content and interpretations, and relevance to the meeting.

The top scoring abstracts receive a Gold Merit Certificate Award as well as a monetary award. The recipient must complete a W-9 tax form. All accepted abstracts are considered. Recipients are highly encouraged to attend the ACR Annual Meeting to accept their award.

The American College of Radiology (ACR) is accredited by the Accreditation Council on Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to sponsor continuing medical education activities for physicians.

The ACR Financial Disclosure Policy: In compliance with ACCME requirements and guidelines, the ACR has developed a policy for review and disclosure of financial interests, and a method of resolution if a conflict does exist. The ACR maintains a tradition of scientific integrity and objectivity in its educational activities. In order to preserve this integrity and objectivity, all individuals participating as planners, presenters, authors, moderators and evaluators in an ACR educational activity or an activity jointly sponsored by the ACR must appropriately disclose any financial relationship with a commercial organization that may have an interest in the content of the educational activity.

All first and co-authors will be required to complete a disclosure form and attest that the statements in the form are accurate and the abstract complies with the U.S. Government’s Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) privacy and data security standards. Authors must attest that the abstract will adhere to all ACCME Criteria and Standards for Commercial Support.

ACR Resolution Mechanism: The ACCME requires all accredited providers of CME to have a mechanism in place for identifying and resolving potential financial interests prior to the educational offering. The ACCME considers financial relationships to create actual conflicts of interest “when individuals have both a financial relationship with a commercial interest and the opportunity to affect the content of CME about the products or services of that commercial interest.” A commercial interest is defined as any entity producing, marketing, re-selling or distributing healthcare goods or services consumed by, or used on, patients.

ACR requires that the first author of an abstract does NOT have a financial interest in the scientific content of the abstract. If the first author has a conflict of interest related to the content, choose a co-author who does not have a relationship to the commercial interests related to the content to attend and answer attendee questions.

ACR requires that the first author of an abstract does NOT have a financial interest in the scientific content of the abstract. If the first author has a conflict of interest related to the content, choose a co-author who does not have a relationship to the commercial interests related to the content to attend and answer attendee questions:

• Attest that there are no third-party ownership or copyright restrictions.
  
• Give ACR permission to record, reproduce and publish the abstract and findings in the meeting program, on the ACR website, in any additional proceedings related to the meeting, and in ACR online and print publications.
  
• Transfer copyright ownership of the accepted abstract to ACR. All authors of accepted abstracts are automatically issued a license to allow the reuse of their abstract at the time they transfer copyright ownership of their abstract to ACR. Authors need not contact the ACR to request permission to repurpose or build upon the work published in their abstract. This right only applies to abstract authors and does not preclude the need for permissions for non-authors to republish abstracts.

Abstract author(s) agrees to bear full responsibility for any claims, damages or losses that may occur because of any acts or omissions made during his or her presentation. ACR will have no liability for those acts or omissions. However, abstract author(s) will not have any such responsibility if ACR is proven to be solely negligent.

All accepted abstracts submitted to the ACR Annual Meeting are embargoed until the first day of the meeting and therefore, may not be announced, publicized or distributed before this date.  The first author is responsible for conveying this information to all co-authors. For questions regarding the embargo policy, please contact annualmeeting@acr.org.

ACR requires that the content of abstracts and e-posters submitted to ACR meetings follow the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regulations implementing this act. To comply with HIPAA regulations, patient confidentiality must be maintained in all education presentations, including e-poster sessions.

Members of the Program Committee and education staff will monitor presentations to identify ways to improve overall presentation quality and HIPAA compliance throughout the meeting.
Patient confidentiality must be protected. Names, dates of scans, birth dates, age, zip codes, medical record numbers and identities must not be included on slides, images or posters that are submitted to ACR. More information on Expert Determination and Safe Harbor can be found on the Health and Human Services website.

Q: Can I update my poster to reflect more recent work once the abstract was accepted?
A: Yes.

Q: Can I change the title of my abstract once the abstract was accepted?
A: No.

Q: Can I change or add authors once the abstract was accepted?
A: No, you must list all authors and co-authors before the submission site closes for review.

Q: Does ACR offer grants for medical students?
A: No.

Q: Do I have to attend the meeting in person if my abstract was selected for a Gold Merit?
A: No, but it is highly recommended.

Q: Can I get an extension on the abstract submission date?
A: The abstracts immediately go into the review process once the deadline is reached therefore, late submissions cannot be accepted.

Q: Can I submit my abstract prior to obtaining official results?
A: The abstract submissions must be final and include results.

Q: Can I use the ACR logo on my e-poster?
A: No, only your institution logo is permitted.

Q: Once the abstract deadline closes, can I change the authors?
A: No, author changes and updates must be done prior to the deadline.

Q: Can I submit an abstract to ACR if it was submitted at another meeting?
A: Yes, if it adheres to current ACR abstract and e-poster guidelines.

Q: Can I submit an abstract for educational review?
A: Abstracts focused on clinical radiology (i.e., more traditional abstracts seen at other national radiology meetings) will not be considered for this meeting. So, educational reviews may or may not be appropriate depending on the content they are reviewing. If the content is focused on learning techniques and tips, pearls and pitfalls, sort of content for residents, for instance, that would be acceptable content for the meeting, however a review of different types of hindfoot coalition would not be suitable content.