Before 24-hour news networks existed, broadcasters used to interrupt programming for breaking news events like a natural disaster, terrorist attack or the assassination of a president. Today, with the advent of generative AI tools, programs can run a breaking news ticker on-air during regular programming without needing to cut in or interrupt with an alert crawl. This has led to a shift toward the “Late Breakers” model, where an entire program is dedicated to breaking news stories that are more important than those featured in the main e-poster sessions.
This article discusses the impact of the Late Breakers on original research presentations at scientific meetings and asks whether the pendulum has overswung, to the point that the emphasis on these abstracts is detracting from the value of other original research presented at the meeting.
The Late Breaking category was introduced in response to the reality that some high impact, innovative research may not be ready for the general abstract submission deadline. This research should contain novel results that were not fully available for the general abstract submission deadline and cannot be a revision of work previously submitted or published. It should also be relevant and significant, rather than merely confirmatory or extensional in nature. In addition, clinical studies (including phase 1 trials) must be prospective in design and authors must provide justification for submitting a late breaking abstract. The authors must be able to describe the reason for the delay, and the study should not have been previously presented or published.