To become an academic expert takes years of studying. Academic experts are experts in how and what others have done. They use case studies and observation to understand a subject.

Simon Sinek, American Author (1973–)

1 What Are the Various Types of Medical Publications?

The various types of medical publications include:

  • Original articles

  • Review articles

  • Letters to the editor

  • Commentaries

  • Case reports

  • Personal communications

  • Students’ page

  • Images

2 What Is the Importance of a Case Report in the Medical Literature?

Case reports are either based on a rare disease or a rare manifestation of a common disease. They can also highlight an unusual clinical situation or a non-conventional treatment. For many authors, it is the first exposure to the world of publication [1]. According to Vandenbroucke, ‘Good case reporting demands a clear focus, to make explicit to the audience why a particular observation is important in the context of existing knowledge’ [2].

Case reports used to be one of the sections in prominent journals and came with a clear message. However, many journals are now removing them to achieve a higher impact factor as case reports are not cited [3]. However, there is often a lot to learn from a case report about a new idea that can pave the way towards future research [4, 5]. Notwithstanding that in the medical hierarchy they are thought to provide a very low quality of evidence (Fig. 28.1) [6].

Fig. 28.1
figure 1

Hierarchy of medical publications

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3 How Do We Write a Case Report?

A case report should tell a good story. While writing it you need not follow the IMRAD format of introduction, methodology, results and discussion (Table 28.1). The title should be brief, catchy and informative. The CARE guidelines for case reports can help writers with writing and also with the checklist [6].

Table 28.1 How to write a case report?
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4 What Are the Qualities of a Good Case Report?

A good case report should have quality, novelty, exceptional interest, conciseness, may be about rare disorder and relevant to medical practice. It may provide new information which can be developed into a hypothesis for further testing.

5 What Are the Limitations of Case Reports?

Case reports may have many scientific restrictions. Some of these are listed below:

  1. 1.

    No generalizations can be made based on a single case report of a disease and few inferences can be drawn for managing such cases in the future [7].

  2. 2.

    Case reports highlight success stories in 90% [8]. Very few doctors report their failures and few editors are likely to publish these.

  3. 3.

    They do not generate any epidemiological data.

  4. 4.

    ‘Anecdotal fallacy’ is the term used to describe overinterpretation or misinterpretation of data associated with case reports [9].

  5. 5.

    The data are retrospective and sometimes based on recall.

6 Are There Any Journals Which Publish Only Case Reports?

There has been a surge in the number of case reports offered for publication and to cope up with this demand some publishers, mainly for commercial considerations, have introduced many journals which only publish case reports. [10] The citation index of the majority of them is less than 1. Some of these are listed in Table 28.2.

Table 28.2 Journals which accept case reports
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7 What Are the Reasons That the Number of Case Reports Is Increasing?

Between 1946 and 1976, case reports accounted for 38% of all articles published in three premier journals, i.e., Journal of the American Medical Association, the Lancet, and the New England Journal of Medicine [11]. From 1971 to 1991, there was a reduction in the number of case reports published in these journals who began to publish more randomized controlled trials and systemic reviews which carried more scientific credibility [12]. After 1991, there was a surge of case reports submitted and published globally mainly to fulfil academic requirements for promotion and prestige. In 2016, there were more than 160 journals that published only case reports [10]. Figure 28.2 shows the increase in the number of journals that only publish case reports.

Fig. 28.2
figure 2

Number of case report journals

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8 Conclusions

  • Descriptions of interesting and rare cases are sometimes accepted by some journals but there are few prestigious publications that carry case reports.

  • Case reports provide a low quality of evidence but if their message is clear they can provide their readers information about a new test or treatment.