Abstract
Background:A case report is a narrative that describes, for medical, scientific, or educational purposes, a medical problem experienced by one or more patients. Case reports written without guidance from reporting standards are insufficiently rigorous to guide clinical practice or to inform clinical study design.Primary Objective:Develop, disseminate, and implement systematic reporting guidelines for case reports.Methods:We used a three-phase consensus process consisting of (1) premeeting literature review and interviews to generate items for the reporting guidelines, (2) a face-to-face consensus meeting to draft the reporting guidelines, and (3) postmeeting feedback, review, and pilot testing, followed by finalization of the case report guidelines.Results:This consensus process involved 27 participants and resulted in a 13-item checklist—a reporting guideline for case reports. The primary items of the checklist are title, key words, abstract, introduction, patient information, clinical findings, timeline, diagnostic assessment, therapeutic interventions, follow-up and outcomes, discussion, patient perspective, and informed consent.Conclusions:We believe the implementation of the CARE (CAse REport) guidelines by medical journals will improve the completeness and transparency of published case reports and that the systematic aggregation of information from case reports will inform clinical study design, provide early signals of effectiveness and harms, and improve healthcare delivery.
Highlights
A case report is a detailed narrative that describes, for medical, scientific, or educational purposes, a medical problem experienced by one or several patients.Case reports present clinical observations customarily collected in healthcare delivery settings
The CAse REport (CARE) guidelines checklist is structured to correspond with key components of a case report and capture useful clinical information
The meeting CARE group felt that a case report should tell a story using prose that has a consistent style across all sections, including the rationale for any conclusions and takeaway messages
Summary
Case reports present clinical observations customarily collected in healthcare delivery settings They have proved helpful in the identification of adverse and beneficial effects, the recognition of new diseases, unusual forms of common diseases, and the presentation of rare diseases.[1] For example, our understanding of the relationship between thalidomide and congenital abnormalities[2] and the use of propranolol for the treatment of infantile hemangiomas began with case reports.[3] Case reports may generate hypotheses for future clinical studies, prove useful in the evaluation of global convergences of systems-oriented approaches, and guide the individualization and personalization of treatments in clinical practice.[4,5] case reports offer a structure for case-based learning in healthcare education and may facilitate the comparison of healthcare education and delivery across cultures. Conclusions: We believe the implementation of the CARE (CAse REport) guidelines by medical journals will improve the completeness and transparency of published case reports and that the systematic aggregation of information from case reports will inform clinical study design, provide early signals of effectiveness and harms, and improve healthcare delivery
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