Dear Readers,

Literature reports of suspected adverse drug reactions (ADRs) associated with medicinal products for human use are not just an integral part of signal detection activities, but are also an important source of information for professionals involved in patient management. Therefore, it is with great pleasure that Adis (Springer) announces the launch of Drug Safety - Case Reports, a new peer-reviewed, online-only, open-access journal designed to provide an avenue for publication of ADR case reports, and a sister journal to our leading review journal in drug safety and pharmacovigilance, Drug Safety.

Value of Literature Reports in Safety Monitoring…

Regulatory authorities worldwide are implementing regulations to reduce the burden of ADRs through detection of signals of medicine safety. Scientific literature, alongside spontaneous reports, is now considered a significant source of information for monitoring the safety of medicines. Marketing authorisation holders are expected to regularly monitor major biomedical databases for reports of suspected adverse reactions related to their products. The purview of pharmacovigilance is, however, not limited to medicinal use within the terms of marketing authorisation. Also of interest are reports of overdose, abuse, misuse, off-label use, medication error, occupational exposure, transmission of infectious agents via a medicinal product, drug interactions, drug withdrawal reactions, in-utero/breastfeeding exposures, off-label use, lack of efficacy and ‘near misses’ (e.g. medication errors detected before harm is done).

… and in Knowledge Sharing

Published reports do not just serve a monitoring purpose. These real-life examples are also a valuable source of information for healthcare professionals. Various guidelines are in place to assist clinicians with patient management. However, we all know that each patient is different and sometimes it is not possible to follow these guidelines completely. Clinicians often have to rely on their experience to offer the best possible care to patients. Soliciting help from colleagues on ‘tricky’ cases is a common practice and an important learning experience. Published case reports serve the same purpose, enhancing the collective experience of clinicians, with the peer-review process adding credibility and perspective.

Our Pharmacovigilance Footprint

For over 30 years, Adis has developed a range of concise, up-to-date and reliable pharmacovigilance solutions to suit the needs of all stakeholders. These include Drug Safety, a premier international journal covering the disciplines of pharmacovigilance, pharmacoepidemiology, benefit–risk assessment, risk management and medication error prevention; Pharmacovigilance Insight, a comprehensive database of ADR case reports, regulatory news and drugs safety studies, updated daily; Reactions Weekly, a weekly newsletter providing up-to-the-minute summaries of the world’s ADR news and published ADR case reports; and Reactions Pharmacovigilance Service, a customised monitoring service enabling business professionals to streamline their Individual Case Safety Report (ICSR) monitoring obligations.

Drug Safety - Case Reports

Although Drug Safety has been serving the needs of ‘pharmacovigilantes’ since 1986, the need to cater to our diverse readership precluded us from publishing case reports on a regular basis. To cover this gap and to acknowledge the importance of published case reports in pharmacovigilance, we decided to launch Drug Safety - Case Reports. This new journal will specialise in the publication of case reports and case series related to suspected ADRs following the use of one or more conventional drugs, vaccines, herbal/complementary medicines, biologics, commercially prepared blood products, diagnostic pharmaceuticals, and drug–device combination products. The reports would cover the entire spectrum of medicine use from authorised use to abuse (please see the aims and scope of the journal for more detail).

The journal will be published online only and will be entirely open access. Manuscripts submitted to Drug Safety - Case Reports would ordinarily incur article processing charges; however, while the journal is becoming established, these will be waived.

Now that the Adis portfolio of journals has been successfully integrated into the production systems and online platforms provided by Springer, as an Adis Open journal we can offer authors:

  • Efficient article submission, peer review and tracking processes

  • Expedited publication timelines

  • High visibility thanks to unrestricted online access

  • Easy discoverability and access for readers of their work

  • Citation tracking and inclusion in bibliographic databases.

Additional benefits of being a part of Springer include the availability of innovative online features for every article via SpringerLink.

We are very excited about the launch of Drug Safety - Case Reports as we believe that there is a profound need for a journal dedicated to ADR case reports in the rapidly developing field of pharmacovigilance. We trust that you will find this new journal both interesting and informative and we welcome your original contributions of ADR case reports.

Yours sincerely

Nitin Joshi and Steve McMillan, Editors

nitin.joshi@springer.com; steve.mcmillan@springer.com