Abstract Guidelines and Policies

Abstract Guidelines 

Presentation Type

Abstracts can be considered for “Oral or Poster” OR “Poster ONLY.” Those who select “Poster ONLY” will not be considered for oral presentation within SITC’s Annual Meeting. Selecting “Oral or Poster” will allow you to be considered for oral presentation within the Annual Meeting and/or poster presentation.

Submission Guidelines

Below are the guidelines for your abstract submission. The submitting author is responsible for assuring that the abstract adheres to these.

General Requirements

  • Type the text unjustified without hyphenating words at line breaks
  • Use single line spacing. Use hard returns only to end headings and paragraphs
  • Abbreviations should be used as sparingly as possible and should be defined when first used
  • All abstracts must be in English. Spelling within any one abstract should be US English or UK English, but not a mixture
  • In most cases, Greek letters and other special characters will transfer from your word processing software via copy and paste functions. If you are unable to reproduce a particular special character, type out the name of the symbol in full
  • SI units should be used throughout (liter and molar are permitted, however.)

Title

The title must be entered exactly as it should appear and should be in sentence case. Do not put the title in quotes, underline it, or use punctuation. The title can be a maximum of 200 characters, including spaces.

Example: Novel pharmacologic approach to enhance the epigenetic and immune priming effect of decitabine in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer

Abstract Category
All abstract submitters will be asked to indicate the primary category with which the abstract most closely aligns. This primary selection will aid the abstract reviewers in placing the abstract into the most appropriate session, if accepted for oral presentation. Accepted abstracts are also listed according to the primary category selected within the Annual Meeting Abstract Book, the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer (JITC) supplement and the Poster Hall.

Should the submitter believe more than one category is applicable, they can select a secondary category. The secondary category will only be used aid the abstract reviewers in placing the abstract into the most appropriate session, if accepted for oral presentation. The secondary category WILL NOT be used for the abstract listing in publications or placement in the Poster Hall.

Keywords
All abstract submitters will be asked to indicate keywords for their abstract. Keywords are included in the Annual Meeting Abstract Book, website and app to assist users in searching for abstracts. Up to 10 keywords can be selected.

Abstract Structure
The following is included in the abstract body and must not exceed 400 words total:
  • Background
  • Methods
  • Results*
  • Conclusions*
*For Clinical Trials in Progress, results and conclusions are not required.

The following are not included in the 400-word limit.
  • Acknowledgements: Brief acknowledgements may be included.
  • Trial Registration: If applicable, abstracts related to randomized controlled clinical trials (RCTs) should include the trial registry along with the unique identifying number. Trial registers that currently meet the publisher’s requirements can be found here.
  • References: Citations to references should be included in square brackets [1,2]. All references need corresponding citations in the text, and vice versa.

Journal abbreviations should follow MEDLINE standards. References should be laid out at the end of the abstract.

Example:
Lastname A, Lastname B, Lastname C. Title of journal article. Journal Medline abbreviation. Year; Volume:first page-last page.

Chomczynski P, Sacchi N, Single-step method of RNA isoloation by acid guanidinium thiocyanate-phernol-chloroform extraction. Anal Biochem. 1987;162:156-159.

Web links (URLs) should be provided in full, including both the title of the site and the URL.

Ethics Approval
If the abstract discusses studies involving human subjects, human material, or human data, or involving animals, an ethics statement should be included: "The study was approved by XYZ intuition’s Ethics Board, approval number 12345."

Consent
If applicable, for abstracts containing sensitive or identifiable information, written consent to publish must be obtained from the study participant(s) by authors. In these cases authors should include a ‘consent’ section in their abstract and SITC recommends using the following wording: “Written informed consent was obtained from the patient for publication of this abstract and any accompanying images. A copy of the written consent is available for review by the Editor of this journal.”

Authors and Institutions
All authors and contact information must be listed in the correct order. The order in which authors will be listed in the author block of all publications including online, the Annual Meeting Abstract Book, and the JITC Supplement is the order that they are entered.

Each author MUST indicate at least one institution affiliation. Affiliations should include Department, University, Town, State, USA OR Institution, Town, Country, for example:

1Pathology Department, New York School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
2Roche Innovation Center Penzberg, Penzberg, Germany

Your submission needs to have a minimum of:

  • 1 Corresponding Author
  • 1 Presenting Author
  • 1 Primary Author

The presenting author will need to complete a Conflicts of Interest Disclosure Form. Once the abstract is submitted, the presenting author will be sent an email notification to complete the form.

The corresponding author will be highlighted and their email provided in the JITC supplement.
There is no limit to the number of authors you can include.

The author submitting an abstract to the 35th Anniversary Annual Meeting & Pre-Conference Programs (SITC 2020) must agree to the following:

  • Serve as the contact for all correspondence about the abstract and inform co-authors about its status
  • Confirm all authors are aware of and agree to the content and data presented in the abstract
  • Verify the abstract is accurate and that permission has been obtained from all relevant parties
  • Verify the abstract has not been published prior to SITC 2020, or if previously published, contains significant new data
  • Agree that the full abstract content submitted to SITC 2020 is embargoed until 8 a.m. ET on Nov. 9, 2020
  • Agree to release of the abstract title prior to the SITC embargo date and time of 8 a.m. ET on Nov. 9, 2020. Regular abstract titles will be released on Oct. 14, 2020 and late-breaking abstract titles will be releases Nov. 2, 2020.
  • Agree to follow all media and press release policies set forth by SITC

Tables, Figures and Images

  • Tables, figures and images should be numbered (ie: Table 1, Figure 1, or Image 1) in the title field with an optional caption
  • The title and caption are not include in the total abstract word count
  • All figures, tables, and images need corresponding citations in the text. Citations to any figures (Figure 1), tables (Table 1) or images (Image 1) must also be included in round brackets. All figures and tables need corresponding citations in the text, and vice versa
  • There is not a limit to the number of figures that can be included
  • Figures must be supplied electronically at 300 dpi minimum (600 dpi preferred)
  • Do not include figures with embedded hyperlinks
  • The following file types will be accepted: .png, .jpg, .gif

Additional Fields

Late-Breaking Abstracts: Late-breaking abstract applications will need to indicate if it is a clinical or lab-based study and will need to include the following information in their application:

Clinical Study

  • Closure date of the study
  • Primary clinical endpoint for analysis
  • Type of analysis

Lab-Based Study

  • Provide an explanation why the experiment(s) could not be completed before the regular abstract submission deadline, July 31, 2020, and needs to be considered for late-breaking submission

Young Investigator Awards Abstracts: Submitters of abstracts that qualify for a Young Investigator Award and indicate they would like to be considered for a Young Investigator Award must include the following information in their application:

  • Upload a letter of recommendation from a supervisor (.doc, .docx, .pdf)
  • Confirm they are a SITC member
  • Confirm they are a student, postdoctoral research fellow, clinical fellow, or junior faculty with three or fewer years on staff, and if so, identify which category they represent
  • Indicate the percentage of contribution by the primary and presenting author in regards to conception and design, collection and assembly, data analysis and interpretation, and abstract writing


Late-Breaking Abstract Information and Eligibility
Late-breaking abstract submission is solely for abstracts with late-breaking data and not for abstracts submitted “late.” The late-breaking abstract deadline is not intended to be an extension of the general submission deadline. Late-breaking abstracts highlight novel and practice-changing studies, and only apply to data that would have not otherwise have been presented as an abstract at SITC 2020.

Examples of acceptable late-breaking abstracts include the following (in each case, results were not available or significant by the regular abstract submission deadline):

  • Results of a practice-changing prospective Phase III clinical trial
  • Phase II study showing anti-tumor activity in a novel context
  • An early clinical trial with novel proof-of-principle data
  • Demonstration of novel cancer biology with therapeutic implications

For clinical studies, authors need to justify late consideration by documenting the closure date of the study, and submit a late-breaking abstract application by the regular abstract submission deadline (Aug. 25, 2020). This application needs to include necessary abstract information (without results and conclusions) and incorporate the primary clinical endpoint for analysis, type of analysis, date of planned analysis, and planned statistical methods for analysis.

Laboratory-based studies need to be justified within the author's late-breaking abstract application. Authors need to specify why experiments could not be completed before the standard abstract deadline.

The data in the abstract must not be published prior to SITC 2020.

Late-breaking abstracts are considered for, but not limited to, oral abstract presentations during the late-breaking abstract sessions. Late-breaking abstract sessions dates and times will be announced soon.

Abstract Policies

Below are the policies of the SITC abstract submission process. By submitting an abstract, you are agreeing to abide by these policies.

Abstract Embargo and Release Information Policy

Regular and Late-Breaking Abstract Titles
Title for regular abstracts will be available on Oct. 14, 2020, and titles for late-breaking abstracts will be available on Nov. 2, 2020, on the SITC Annual Meeting website. Once abstract titles are listed on the website, press releases can be issued with the titles and logistical information.

Regular and Late-Breaking Abstract Content
Full regular and late-breaking abstract content will be embargoed until 8 a.m. ET on Nov. 9, 2020. This includes content within the original abstract submitted, additional data that was available on a poster of the abstract and/or any updated and/or any new data that will be available in oral presentations in SITC’s Annual Meeting.

Press Release Policy

Any planned press releases and media alerts must have been reviewed and approved in advance by SITC Communications staff. Please provide a minimum for two business days for review. Drafts should be emailed to communications@sitcancer.org.

For press releases about abstracts aimed at being released:

  • Before 8 a.m. ET on Nov. 9, 2020: Press releases should be issued with only logistical information (abstract title, author, poster number, and presentation date and time) about an abstract/poster/oral presentation
  • After 8 a.m. ET on Nov. 9, 2020: Press releases should be issued with information about the content within the original abstract submitted, additional data that will be available on a poster of the abstract and/or any updated and/or new data that will be available in oral presentation at SITC’s Annual Meeting

Withdrawal & Editing Policy

The deadline for regular abstract withdrawal or changes, including presenter changes, is Sept. 30, 2020. The deadline for late-breaking abstract withdrawal or changes, including presenter changes, is Oct. 15, 2020. These deadlines are set in place because the abstract information is pulled for publication immediately following these dates and cannot be edited after that. If you would like to withdraw or make a change to your abstract between the submission deadline and this date, you must submit your request in writing to education@sitcancer.org. Upon receipt of your request SITC will make the change, if possible, and send a confirmation once the withdrawal or change has been completed.

SITC Privacy Policy

Please see the SITC Privacy Policy regarding providing your information on SITC platforms and our service providers, including the Abstract Management System provided by Planstone.

Encore Presentation Policy

Any abstract that has been previously accepted and/or published (by any meeting or publisher) must contain substantial new data in order to be considered. Contact education@sitcancer.org with any questions pertaining to substantial new data.

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