28th International Epilepsy Congress
Budapest, June 28th - July 2nd 2009

• Home
• Registration
• Abstracts
• Accommodation

Abstract rules and instructions
The rules and instructions should be followed carefully. Failure to comply with abstract submission rules will result in the abstract not being accepted for review.

*Please note that the rules set out below apply to Poster/Platform abstract submission only. Invited speakers should refer to instructions provided directly from the Congress  Secretariat for the submission of abstracts for invited lectures.

Submission rules
Content rules
Abstract submission fee
Instructions for the online submission system
Travel bursary information

Submission Rules

•    Abstracts will not be accepted unless they are submitted online via the congress website before midnight (GMT), Friday 16th January 2009. Late abstracts will NOT be accepted. Abstracts submitted by post, fax or email will not be considered.

•    All abstracts should be written, submitted and presented in English with a maximum word count of 250 words (not including the abstract title, authors and institutions).

•    All correspondence will be sent to the submitting author only. It is the responsibility of the submitting author to forward any relevant correspondence to the presenting author.

•    The first name in each abstract should be that of the presenting author. Submission of more than one abstract by the same first author is not permitted.

•    Each author is permitted to present once  (not including invited lectures).

•    Authors will be notified in writing in early 2009 whether or not their abstract has been approved by the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC). The decision of the SAC is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

•    Once an abstract has been approved, the presenting author must register for the Congress for final  acceptance. Abstracts will only receive final acceptance if the presenting author has registered for the entire Congress. Day registrations will not be permitted.

•    All presenting authors are expected to attend the congress. Non-registered presenting authors may be excluded from publication in the congress final programme and the online Epilepsia supplement.

•    All abstracts accepted for presentation at the congress will be published, subject to editorial review, as an online supplement of Epilepsia.

•    Instructions for both platform and poster presentations will be available on the congress website. Abstracts selected for oral presentations may use either Microsoft PowerPoint (PC Format) or standard VHS video only.

•    Young Investigator Award applications will be accepted from people under 45 years of age who have submitted an abstract. Application procedures are available on the Awards section of the website.


Submission Fee

•    An abstract submission fee of 50 EUR must be paid at the time of abstract submission. This non-refundable fee will be automatically deducted from the congress registration fee.
 •    Abstract submitted without the fee will not be reviewed by the Scientific Advisory Committee
•    Abstract authors whose full registration fee will be covered by a third party will be reimbursed the abstract submission fee after the congress.

Content rules

•    Abstract submitters should ensure that the version sent is the final one, changes will not be permitted. 

•    Institution information should be provided for all authors. Including institution, city, state/province and country but excluding department, division, laboratory, etc.

•    Abstracts should be structured in 4 sections:
            1. Purpose
            2. Method
            3. Results
            4. Conclusion

 The "Purpose" section should indicate the objectives of the work being presented.
The "Method" section should describe study material or subjects (e.g. number and type of patients), intervention and evaluation procedures.
The "Results" section should summarise the main findings. Wherever possible, give numerical values, including means with SD or SEM, and statistical significance or confidence intervals.
The "Conclusion" section should state briefly the conclusions reached in the work.

•    Figures, tables and other illustrations should not be included.

•    Where appropriate, the ethics committee that has approved the study should be named. 

•    If the work was supported by funds provided by a commercial organisation this should be stated in a short acknowledgment at the end of the abstract. Other sources of funding may be acknowledged in the same way.

•    Submission of abstracts describing data that have previously been published in any scientific journal is not permitted.

•    Multiple submissions of abstracts describing different components of the same study is not appropriate. All findings generated from the same study should be included in a single abstract.

•    Abstracts containing single case reports will not usually be accepted, unless the report is of outstanding scientific or clinical interest because of the uniqueness of the findings or the sophistication of the investigations.

•    Abstracts containing data considered to be insufficiently informative will not be accepted.

•    Authors should use a concise title that indicates the content of the abstract. The title should not exceed 240 characters. Abbreviations should be avoided in the title.

•    For intervention studies (for example, therapeutic trials), type of design (prospective or retrospective, controlled or uncontrolled, randomised or observational, open vs. single-blind vs. double-blind), dosages, assessment methods and duration of follow-up should be specified.

•    Non-proprietary names of drugs must be used throughout. If results are considered to be specific for a given proprietary product (for example, bio-equivalence studies), the non-proprietary name must still be used, followed by the proprietary name and the name of the manufacturers in brackets.

•    Abbreviations should be used sparingly. For words that are abbreviated, use the whole term the first time, followed by the standard abbreviation in parenthesis. For anti-epileptic drugs, standard abbreviations are those published in Epilepsia 1993; 34:1151.

•    References should be used sparingly. They should be included within the text in brackets. For journals, mention first author "et al" followed by the name of the journal as abbreviated in the Index Medicus, year, volume number and inclusive pages (i.e. Hardus P et al. Epilepsia 2001;42:262-267.). For book chapters, give first author "et al", editor, title, publisher, city of publication, year and inclusive pages (i.e. Levy RH et al. In: Levy RH et al, Antiepileptic Drugs. Lippincott-Raven, 1996;13-30.).

•    Submission of an abstract automatically implies acknowledgment that the work described was conducted in accordance with current ethical standards and regulations in biomedical research. Failure to adhere to these standards will result in rejection of the abstract.