Abstract Eligibility & Submission

The ASCO Plenary Series is designed for quicker delivery of clinically relevant research. It highlights timely information for providers that includes context for clinical application provided by experts.

The abstract should address scientific questions, detail clinical observations, or contain primary scientific data in the form of a randomized phase II and III trial.

Submission Tracks

Key Dates

The ASCO Plenary Series will take place monthly through April and resume after the ASCO Annual Meeting. Mark your calendar for important key dates, including monthly abstract submission deadlines.

Submission Requirements

As you prepare your abstract submission, please make note of the following requirements.

• ASCO Account: To submit an abstract, you will need to log in with an ASCO.org account. If you are not an ASCO member, you can create a guest account. The person submitting the abstract is not required to be an author on the abstract and will be able to select the first/presenting author on the designated step. However, the first author will need to accept/agree to all ASCO policies and will be held responsible for any violation of the policies. Submitters will be automatically assigned an abstract control number once they complete the Title step in the submitter.
• Identification of Original Research: Indicate whether your abstract reports on original research. Original research means a systematic investigation designed for the purpose of expanding knowledge or understanding, including the analysis of data.
• Identification of Clinical Trials: Indicate whether your research is a clinical trial. A clinical trial is: a research study in which one or more human subjects are prospectively assigned to one or more interventions (which may include placebo or other control) to evaluate the effects of those interventions on health-related biomedical or behavioral outcomes (National Institutes of Health [NIH] Office of Extramural Research.)
• Registration: Though clinical trial registration is not required for abstract submission, publication, or presentation, certain clinical trials are required to be registered by law and/or prior to journal publication. If a clinical trial is already registered, the first author will be asked to provide the name of the registry and the trial registration number during the abstract submission process. The clinical trial number will be included as part of the published abstract.
• Funding Source: Indicate whether the abstract was funded by the NIH, a pharmaceutical or biotechnology company, a tobacco company, a foundation, or another source. The funding source will be included as part of the published abstract.
• Abstract Title: The title should objectively describe the study. Do not refer to study results or conclusions. ASCO reserves the right to edit conclusive titles.
• Coauthor(s): Provide the full name, academic degree(s), institution, address, email address, and disclosure information for each author. You may list up to 20 individual authors for each abstract.
• Disclosure Declaration: ASCO’s policy promotes balance, independence, objectivity, and scientific rigor in all of its activities through the disclosure of financial interests and other relationships, and management of potential conflicts. The financial interests or relationships requiring disclosure are outlined in ASCO’s Policy For Relationships With Companies (Journal of Clinical Oncology 2017 35:7, 796-798). All authors are expected to disclose all relationships with for-profit health care companies.
• Author Disclosure: All authors' conflict of interest disclosure information is required to complete a submission. To do so:
  • Distribute the Coauthor Disclosure Form to your coauthors, collect responses, and manually enter them at the COI Disclosure step. It is recommended to collect this information before starting your submission.
  • Authors can submit their disclosure electronically through the ASCO Disclosure Management System. If an author has provided his/her disclosure through the system already, the information will automatically populate across all of their submissions.
• Abstract Body/Table: The body of your abstract should describe the background, methods, results, and conclusions of your research. You may type your abstract directly into the text box, cut and paste from an existing document, or upload a text file of your abstract. Do not exceed 2,600 characters (approximately 300 to 350 words) for the total of your abstract title and body including section titles, and table. The character count does not include spaces or author names or institutions. One data table is permitted per abstract. Limit your table to no more than 10 rows. Do not use shading or merge cells with centered text, as this formatting will not render in the published abstract. Illustrations and figures are not permitted.
• Submission Track: Select the most appropriate track for the abstract. The ASCO Scientific Review Committee has the authority to recategorize an abstract.
• Submission Fee: A $60 (USD) nonrefundable submission fee will be charged per abstract submitted. Payment is due at the time of submission.
• Abstract Changes: The designated submitter or the first author may view and modify abstracts any time between submission and the deadline. Your ASCO username and password are required to log in and edit the submission. Changes to accepted abstracts are permitted on a case-by-case basis. After publication, only corrections for major errors or omissions are considered and must be submitted by the first author.
• Withdrawal of Abstracts: If the first author wishes to withdraw the abstract from presentation after notifications have been sent by ASCO, the author must submit a written request within twenty-four (24) hours.

First Author Responsibilities

The First Author must:

• Agree to the Prior Presentation/Publication and Confidentiality Policies on behalf of all parties involved in the study
• ​Verify that, if necessary for the work reported, the clinical research represented in the abstract was approved by an appropriate ethics committee or institutional review board and that, if appropriate to the research, informed consent was obtained for all subjects.
• Verify that all coauthors are aware of the contents of the abstract and support its data.
• Agree, on behalf of all coauthors, to transfer copyright to ASCO.
• Ensure that all coauthors meet the definition of authorship as stated by the International Committee of Medical Journel Edits