ABSTRACT SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Please review the guidelines below carefully before commencing your abstract submission.
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IMPORTANT DATES:
29 October 2020: Abstract submission opens
2 March 2021 at 23:59 (CET): Abstract submission deadline
Abstracts submitted after the deadline will not be accepted
March 2021: Reviewing and selection by the Scientific Programme Chairs
April 2021: Notifications of acceptance/rejection

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
General Guidelines
How to submit an abstract
Programme topics
Abstract Submission
1. Abstract content
2. Tables and Figures
3. Authors and Co-authors
4. Conflict of Interest
5. Language Settings of your keyboard
6. Technical Requirements
After submission & prior publication
1. Embargo Policy
2. Withdrawal Policy
3. Reviewing and Selection
4. Notifications of acceptance/rejection

General Guidelines
The abstract must address scientific questions, detail clinical observations, or contain primary scientific data.
Abstracts should be submitted in clear English to allow the reviewers to focus on the scientific content of the abstract. Non-English-speaking authors are encouraged to have their abstract checked for grammar and spelling.
Please ensure your abstract does not contain spelling, grammar, or scientific mistakes, as it will be reproduced exactly as submitted. Linguistic accuracy is your responsibility. No proofreading will be done.
Abbreviations should be defined.
The setup of experimental studies must be documented.
Please do not slice results from the same study into multiple abstracts. The Scientific Programme Chairs reserve the right to reject abstracts when inappropriate slicing of data is suspected. Similarly, do not submit a copy or close copy of an abstract under more than one topic. Abstracts that appear to be submitted multiple times under different topics will be rejected. If the Scientific Programme Chairs determine that the abstract should be categorised under a different category, they will do so and your abstract will not be penalised, hence the request that you only submit the abstract once.
All research and studies in submitted abstracts that involve human subjects or experimental animals must comply with the Declaration of Helsinki.
In clinical studies, please state whether informed consent was obtained and whether the study was approved by a recognised medical ethics committee.
If the research included in your abstract was supported by a pharmaceutical or diagnostics company, you can indicate this when submitting your abstract.
Please indicate the funding agency of your work if applicable.
No revisions will be possible after the abstract submission deadline.

How to submit an abstract
Delegates who would like to present their work at the event, either orally or as an E-Poster, are invited to submit an abstract for consideration by the Scientific Programme Chairs.
ESSKA Members / ESSKA Section Members and Non-Members are invited to submit abstracts.
There are no fees to submit an abstract.
Abstracts can only be submitted online via the ESSKA Speciality Days website. Abstracts sent by post or e-mail will not be accepted. No exceptions will be made.
The submitter will be required to create a user account to submit an abstract. This can be done through the registration portal. Once logged in you will be able to select “Abstract Submission.”
Abstracts can be saved in “Draft” status and be modified or withdrawn until the submission deadline (2 March 2021 at 23:59 (CET))
Edits can still be made on an already submitted abstract until the abstract submission deadline, provided the changes made are valid.
The submitted/draft abstracts cannot be edited after the submission deadline.
Abstracts deleted or remaining in draft mode after the submission deadline will not be considered.

Any technical questions regarding the submission process should be sent to: esskasd2021@abstractserver.com.
All other abstract-related questions can be sent to: esska-sd-scientific@kit-group.org.

Programme topics
Abstract can only be submitted for one of the four ESSKA section programme topics (AFAS, EKA, ESA or ESMA).
The content of the abstract must be related to one of the topics listed below to ensure smooth scoring of papers. The topic (category) of your work must be selected during the submission process.

AFAS: Sports related injuries in foot and ankle – Optimising management of tendon, cartilage and ligament injuries
The abstracts can be submitted for the following categories:
• Peroneal tendon
• Achilles tendon
• Lis franc injuries
• Instability and cartilage
EKA: Intra- and perioperative complications in degenerative knee surgery
Interactive worst-case discussion:
The abstract text must be structured as such:
1. Case presentation: Which should briefly outline the case.
2. What was the problem? How was it solved?
3. Conclusions: What have we learned? What would we do differently?
The abstracts can be submitted for the following categories:
• HTO
• UKA
• TKA
• Revision TKA
ESA: Anterior shoulder instability – Diagnosis and treatment
Abstracts for scientific projects or studies can be submitted for the following subcategories:
• Basic Science
• Diagnostic methods
• Radiological investigations
• Nonsurgical treatment
• Surgical treatment
Interesting clinical cases should be submitted in the relevant subcategory:
• Clinical case
Selected clinical cases will be presented and discussed in the relevant session. The authors will be able to present the case which will be further discussed with panel of experts and audience. The moderator will focus the discussion on the main problem.
Clinical case submissions and presentations – if the abstract is accepted – (please provide images or short videos if possible) should include:
1. Patients characteristics
2. History and clinical examination
3. Diagnostic workup
4. Choice of treatment
5. Result
6. Possible problem/complication
7. Dilemmas
8. What have I learned
ESMA: Adolescent and paediatric sports injuries. What is changing? Best treatment and prevention options!
The abstracts can be submitted for the following categories:
• ACL injuries prevention
• Overuse injuries
• ACL injuries management
• ACL injuries rehabilitation
• Chondral and osteochondral injuries
• Meniscal injuries
• Patella instability
• Anterior knee pain
• Muscle and tendon injuries
• Return to sports after injuries

Abstract Submission
1. Abstract Content
For standardisation, the acceptable length of the abstract is a maximum of 2,500 characters, including inserted tables and figures.
This does not include the author details (institutes etc.) and abstract titles.
Abstract Title: Clearly indicate the nature of the investigation. The abstract title and text may not contain trade names. It should be short and significant. The text must be orthographically suitable for publishing. The Scientific Programme Chairs reserves the right to replace trade names in accepted abstracts.
Abstract Text: The abstract should be as informative as possible. Abstracts should ideally use the following structured format unless specified otherwise in the Programme topics section above:
Objectives: Outline the content or expectations of the work being presented and describe the overall goal that the research project or study is hoping to achieve.
Methods: Provide sufficient information to be able to understand the experimental design, the analytical techniques and the statistics used in the study. Please specify if the study is prospective or retrospective. Statistical procedures must be specified.
Results: Provide objective data to answer the scientific question(s).
Conclusions: State the conclusions of the study (that are directly supported by the results), along with implications for clinical practice, avoiding speculation and overgeneralisation.
*Additionally, please refer to Programme topics for complementary information about the content of the abstract text.

It is not allowed to submit an abstract several times to different topics of the congress.
If off-label use of drugs was involved in the study, please state this clearly.
2. Table and Figures
Figures may be submitted with a maximum file size per image of 5MB with a size of 600(w)x800(h pixel).
Tables are allowed with a maximum size of 10 columns x 10 rows.
Each row of the table will be counted as 50 characters against your 2,500 characters total and an image/figure will be counted as 150 characters against your 2,500 characters total.
Your abstract may contain up to three graphics/images in total.
3. Authors and Co-Authors
The first/presenting author is responsible for ensuring that all authors have read the abstract and agreed to be co-authors.
The presenting author of the abstract must be registered for the meeting.
The submission of an abstract constitutes a formal commitment by the submitting (presenting) author to present the abstract (if accepted) in the session (time, date, appropriate session category) assigned by the Scientific Programme Chairs. Registration fees will not be waived.
A maximum of 8 authors is permitted for each abstract.
Adding co-authors: please fill out the surnames, first names, and institution, city, country, and e-mail addresses of each co-author.
4. Conflict of Interest
It is the intent of the ESSKA to provide high-quality sessions focused on educational content that is free from commercial influence or bias. Thus, the submitting/presenting author of an abstract is requested to declare any potential conflicts of interest for the presenting author during abstract submission.
5. Language Setting of Your Keyboard
The keyboard configuration of computers in non-Western countries may cause problems with the printing of the abstracts when special non-Western characters are used. To avoid these problems the language setting of your computer should be changed.
To do this select “Start,” then “Settings,” then “Control Panel,” and then choose “Keyboard.” Once in this menu, set the language of your computer to English (United Kingdom). Next, open MS Word (or the word processing software you are using) and set the font type to Arial.
In the preparation of your abstract, if you require certain special characters that are not available, (e.g. ‘±’, ‘®’, ‘μ’), use the “insert symbol” feature (special characters). To do this, select Arial as the font (unicoded, if possible), then select the required character, and copy and paste the symbol into the text of the abstract. If a special character is still not available, describe the character, e.g. ‘alpha’.
6. Technical Requirements
The online abstract submission system works best with Internet Explorer 7.0 or higher or Mozilla Firefox 3.0 or higher. Cookies and JavaScript need to be enabled.

After submission & prior publication
Authors will be permitted to submit their abstract to ESSKA Speciality Days 2021 as long as the abstract has not been published at the time of submission or will not be published prior to ESSKA releasing the abstract (on the first day of the meeting).
1. Reviewing & Selection
The Scientific Programme Chairs and additional experts will review the abstracts.
Each abstract will be judged by three different experts.
The reviewers will evaluate and grade the abstracts for the quality of their scientific content.
After the reviewing, the Scientific programme chairs will select abstracts to be included in the programme based on the evaluation ranking.
Abstracts may be selected for oral presentations or for E-Posters.
Abstracts with a ranking lower than a certain threshold may be rejected.
Abstracts that show formal errors (multiple submissions or already published) will be rejected.
2. Notifications of acceptance/rejection.
The first author will be notified in April 2021, at the e-mail address provided during submission, about whether their abstract has been accepted or rejected.
Accepted abstracts will be published in the online programme on the first day of the event.
Oral Presentations and E-Posters will be available digitally on ESSKA Academy after the event.
Oral Presentations: Authors of abstracts selected for oral presentation will be informed about the date and time of the session. Presentation guidelines will be communicated prior the event and made available online.
E-Posters: E-Poster presenters will be informed about the date and time of the E-Poster exhibition. E-Poster submission links and guidelines will be communicated prior the event and made available online. E-Posters will be organised within the exhibition using the topics chosen during abstract submission.
3. ESSKA Embargo Policy
The media, companies and institutions issuing news releases, and others are required to abide by the embargo policies governing the meeting. The abstracts selected for presentation at ESSKA Speciality Days 2021 will be available online on the first day of the meeting.
The information contained in the abstracts is embargoed until the abstracts are available online on the first day of the event.
Coverage of information that goes beyond that(e.g., additional analysis, commentary, or updated information from those individuals and companies involved in the study) is embargoed according to the following criteria:
For oral presentations: the embargo time is the start time of the session in which the presentation is being made.
For E-Posters: the embargo lifts when the poster session containing the E-Posters opens for viewing in the morning (i.e., when the E-poster exhibition hall opens that day).
4. Withdrawal Policy
If authors wish to withdraw their abstracts from presentation or publication, they are requested to notify ESSKA via e-mail to esska-sd-scientific@kit-group.org. Withdrawn abstracts will neither be presented nor published.