Two main types of abstracts will be accepted: research abstracts and case studies.

Research abstracts must meet strict criteria outlined below. A copy of the institutional review board approval or waiver letter must be uploaded during submission.

Accepted abstracts will be published in an eSupplement of Anesthesia & Analgesia. 

There is one round of early review of abstracts to facilitate presenters who require more time to organise their logistics to attend WCA.  

All accepted abstracts will be presented as E-Posters.

A few abstracts will be selected for the oral best clinical and best basic science research competitions.

All abstracts submitted must adhere to the Declaration of Helsinki’s ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects and the rules laid down by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors in their Recommendations for conducting, reporting, editing, and publishing scholarly work in medical journals. 

Abstracts can only be submitted online via the online abstract submission system. Abstracts sent by post or email will not be accepted. No exceptions will be made.

Only abstracts that contain original data can be submitted

• Abstracts cannot be submitted if the data has been presented at an international meeting or published before 01 October 2025. However, it is acceptable for interim results to have been presented before, with the WCA abstract containing more complete data. 

• Abstracts containing data that has been submitted for publication or to a scientific meeting, but are pending acceptance, can be submitted. However, if it is accepted elsewhere, the authors must inform WCA2026 of the details, and each individual case will be reviewed.

Abstracts will NOT be accepted if they do not provide any data, and/or state that the main data and results will be provided during the presentation. 

It is the intent of WCA2026 to provide high quality sessions focused on educational content that is free from commercial influence or bias. The submitting author of an abstract is requested to declare any potential conflicts of interest for all authors during the abstract submission.

The inclusion of pharmaceutical trade names or brand names is generally not permitted in the abstract unless evaluation of that particular product is the specific purpose of the study

Abstracts must be assigned a track for submission, and sometimes a subcategory within the track. Presenters may also select a secondary track.

The content of the abstract must be related to the track selected.

The WCA2026 Scientific Committee may reassign an abstract to another track.

The tracks are: 

• Airway Management
• Ambulatory Anaesthesia
• Arts & Humanities
• Circulation – Cardiac Anaesthesia, Circulation
• Critical Care
• Education and International Development
• Global Health
• Neuroscience – Neuroanaesthesia, Neurointensive Care, Neuroscience
• Obstetric Anaesthesia
• Paediatric Anaesthesia
• Pain Medicine
• Perioperative Medicine
• Pharmacology and Technology  – Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Pharmacology, Technology
• Professional Practice (including Wellbeing and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) 
• Publication and Research Methods (*Only abstracts directly related to publication or research methodology should be submitted under this track)
• Regional Anaesthesia
• Respiration
• Safety & Quality
• Sustainability

There will be two categories for submission, each with two sub-categories. Opinion pieces and narrative reviews will not be accepted.

1. Research abstracts:

• Clinical Research.
  • This includes any research on humans or human tissues and data collected from humans with clinical objectives.

• Basic Science Research
  • This is usually animal work but may also include some laboratory, bench or data research. 

• A study is only considered research if it meets the definitions adopted by various national organisations such as the UK Health Research Authority and the US Department of Health and Human Services:

Research is a systematic investigation designed to develop or contribute to generalisable knowledge.

There are public web resources that explain the concept of generalisable knowledge further, such as:

https://www.hra-decisiontools.org.uk/research/docs/DefiningResearchTable_Oct2022.pdf

https://cuhs.harvard.edu/do-you-need-irb-review-and-why#:~:text=Generalizable%20knowledge%20is%20information%20that,or%20the%20specific%20subjects%20studied

• Human and animal research must be approved or exempted by the relevant local institutional review boards, or animal or clinical ethics committees

A copy of the approval/exemption letter must be uploaded during the submission process

Clinical trials will need to provide their Trial Registration number.

2. Case Studies: Descriptions of interesting events and practices that occur in anaesthesiology, critical care or pain medicine, with some educational value. 

1. Clinical Case Reports or Case Series that describe medically challenging cases, or 
2. Projects: innovative quality improvement or other management programmes designed to address problems. Service development or health surveillance programmes and clinical audits may be submitted here

• Clinical Case Reports of well-known conditions, where recommended guidelines were followed and nothing eventful occurred will not be accepted

• All abstracts must state the problem, describe how the problem was addressed, state the results or outcome, and provide some concluding remarks about key issues and recommendations.

• For clinical Case Reports. ensure that the patient cannot be identified from the abstract. You are required to declare that you have obtained the patient’s consent for submitting their case report as an abstract.

The WCA2026 Scientific Committee will make the final decision on whether an abstract is categorised as a research abstract or case study.

1. Research abstracts should be structured into the following sections:  

• Title which clearly indicates the nature of the investigation. 
  • If the research involves animals, state the animal species in the title of the abstract.  
• Background & Objectives 
  • State the main hypothesis of the study, and the primary outcome variable or data being studied.
• Methods 
  • Start with a description of the study design, and include the statistical methods used.
• Results  
  • Actual data must be presented for the primary outcome, and state the results of the statistical analysis.
• Discussion and Conclusion 
  • There must be a statement related to the primary outcome or hypothesis.
• References if any

For submission of Research abstracts, you are required to upload a copy of the Institutional Review Board’s approval/waiver letter and provide the trial registration number where applicable. 

Case Studies should be structured into the following sections:  

• Title which clearly indicates the nature of the study.   
• Background
  • (What is the unique or significant problem highlighted by this clinical case, or the purpose of the project).
• Description of case or project with findings
• Discussion  
• Learning Point
  • (What is the take home message from this report?) 
• References if any

For submission of Case Reports, you are required to declare that you have obtained the patient’s consent for submitting their case report as an abstract.

Word Limit:  
The acceptable length of the abstract is not more than 300 words.  This does not include references. 
Up to 3 references can be included with a limit of 30 words. 

Graph/Image:   
Up to two graphs/images can be included.  

Table:  
Up to two tables can be included.  

Language:  
Only English is accepted. Please ensure that your abstract does not contain spelling, grammatical or scientific errors, as it will be reproduced as submitted. Limited proofreading will be done.  

Abstracts can be saved in “Draft” status to be re-edited and modified until the dates for the two submission deadlines. Abstracts submitted by 31 July cannot be edited after that date because they will be reviewed in the first round.

Abstracts can only be submitted if all required abstract submission fields have been completed. Only abstracts in “Submitted” status will be regarded as successfully submitted and considered for the WCA. Once an abstract has been submitted, no changes can be made.

If you would like to make changes to an abstract, please indicate your paper number and email your changes to the WCA2026 Abstract Team wca.abstracts@abstractserver.com 

Abstracts can be submitted from 04 June 2025 until the closing date of 30 September 2025. 

To facilitate presenters who require more time to organise their logistics to attend WCA, there will be two rounds of review.

Abstracts submitted by 31 July will be reviewed in August and submitters notified of the result by early September.

Abstracts submitted by 30 September will be reviewed in October and submitters notified of the result by early November.

• The submission of an abstract constitutes a formal commitment by the presenting author to present the abstract (if accepted) as an E-Poster in the session and the time assigned by the WCA2026 Scientific Committee. 

• The presenting author must have full registration for the WCA. There will be no virtual presentation. 

• Presenting authors of accepted abstracts will be able to register at the early bird registration fee upon reception of the abstract acceptance notification.

• If the presenter does not register for the WCA2026 by 06 January 2026, the abstract will be withdrawn from the WCA2026 and not published in the Anesthesia & Analgesia e-supplement.
  
• The presenting author can be changed. Please contact the WCA2026 Abstract Team wca.abstracts@abstractserver.com if this is necessary

• Abstracts accepted for the congress are subject to the “Transfer of copyright”. With the submission of an abstract the authors agree to the transfer of copyright.

• The Corresponding Author has the right to grant, and does grant, on behalf of all authors an exclusive licence on a worldwide basis to WCA2026 to publish the abstract (if accepted) in any media and to exploit all subsidiary rights.

• WCA2026 does not provide any individual feedback on the reasons for acceptance/ rejection of an abstract.

Abstracts not adhering to these terms will be rejected. If you do not agree with any of these rules, you should not submit an abstract. The final decision about acceptance of an abstract will be taken by the WCA2026 Scientific Committee.

Abstracts accepted for WCA2026 and not withdrawn are subject to an embargo. The abstract should not be presented at an international meeting or published and searchable by online international database before 01 April 2026.

All abstracts will be presented as E-Posters. Scheduling of E-Poster sessions and abstract presentations is at the discretion of the Scientific Programme Committee. Abstracts will be organised into sessions according to the track the abstract is finally categorised into.

E-Poster Presentation

• If an abstract is accepted as an E-Poster presentation, the presenting author must be available for discussion during the whole corresponding E-Poster viewing session.
• Further details on how to create your E-Posters will be sent to you after the abstract notification date.

Oral Presentation

• A few abstracts will be selected for an additional oral presentation in the best clinical and best basic science abstract prize competitions.

• If the abstract is selected for oral presentation, the authors, represented by the presenting author, will have to sign an agreement to grant WCA2026 the right to record the entire presentation (audio and slide) and subsequently use it for educational purposes.

• If an abstract is selected for oral presentation, the presenting author, as specified at submission, will be requested to present it in the assigned session.

Details will be communicated to the author by 31 January 2026.

A written statement reflecting the reasons for withdrawing your abstract must be sent to the WCA2026 Abstract Team.