Abstract
BackgroundA 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.MethodsWe used a three-phase consensus process consisting of (1) pre-meeting 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) post-meeting feedback, review, and pilot testing, followed by finalization of the case report guidelines.ResultsThis 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.ConclusionsWe 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 take-away messages
Summary
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. 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]. Written without the benefit of reporting guidelines, case reports often are insufficiently rigorous to be aggregated for data analysis, inform research design, or guide clinical practice [7,9]. Disseminate, and implement systematic reporting guidelines for case reports
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