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Welcome to BMJ Case Reports from the Editor
Beta site Call for Papers BMJ Case Reports Fellowships
What shall we do with case reports? Some are critical of them
Case reports covering innovative treatments, addressing rare conditions, highlighting unusual manifestations of common problems or generally discussing the extremely unusual can sometimes do more harm than good if they distract the reader with the trivial.1 Case reports are often not cited2 and the conclusions do not usually undergo further investigation.3 Some case reports have even been viewed as "a lame excuse for an (unstructured) review of the literature".4
However, we feel there is great value in a well written case report.
They stimulate learning and research. As a time-honoured tradition of medicine they are capable of developing new subject areas, providing educational material and are among the most read content in journals.2 Case reports are very sensitive for detecting novelty which is useful in recognising new diseases and also new side effects of drugs, both adverse and beneficial.4,5
They complement evidence-based medicine. A recent study of drugs withdrawn from the market showed that the scientific evidence came from spontaneous case reports (or case series) in 19 of 21 drugs. Case reports were the sole evidence in 12 and a randomised controlled trial was only responsible for one.6 Meta-analysis of case reports can even be undertaken.4
"Case reports and case series may be the 'lowest' or the 'weakest' level of evidence 'of a cause', but they often remain 'the first line of evidence of what happened'. This is where everything begins."7
Dr Dean Jenkins, Editor BMJ Case Reports
bmjcases@bmjgroup.com
1. Hoffman JR. Rethinking case reports. West J Med 1999;170:253-4. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1305569
2. Mahajan RP, Hunter JM. Volume 100: Case reports: should they be confined to the dustbin? Br J Anaesth. 2008 Jun;100(6):744-6. http://bja.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/100/6/744
3. Loke YK, Price D, Derry S, et al. Case reports of suspected adverse drug reactions - systematic literature survey of follow-up. BMJ. 2006;332:335-9. http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/332/7537/335
4. Vandenbroucke JP. In defense of case reports and case series. Ann Intern Med 2001;134:330-4. http://www.annals.org/cgi/reprint/134/4/330
5. Russmann S. Case reports of suspected adverse drug reactions: Case reports generate signals efficiently. BMJ 2006 332:488. http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/332/7539/488-a
6. Olivier P, Montastruc JL. The nature of the scientific evidence leading to drug withdrawals for pharmacovigilance reasons in France. Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf. 2006;15:808-12.
7. Jenicek M. Clinical Case Reporting in Evidence-Based Medicine. Second Edition. London: Arnold; 2001,163.
Beta site
BMJ Case Reports will deliver a focused, peer-reviewed and valuable collection of cases in all disciplines so that healthcare professionals, researchers and others can easily find clinically important information on common and rare conditions.
This beta site is free to all and has limited functionality. We will publish accepted cases in raw manuscript form as pdfs. We are working with HighWire Press to develop a sophisticated site to be launched later in the year where we will publish the fully edited articles. This site will allow users to find cases based on speciality and patient demographics. Users will also be able to respond to published cases, sign up for customised content alerts and RSS feeds, download images to PowerPoint and much more.
To be alerted to new developments we encourage you to register now
Call for papers
We are now accepting submissions and look forward to reading your cases. To ensure that the articles are published in an easy to find, easy to read format we require all authors to submit using our Word templates. For more information please read our Instructions to authors
BMJ Case Reports Fellowships
BMJ Case Reports has a unique business model whereby users (whether authors and/or readers) become Fellows. For more details on how our Fellowships work read What does it cost?
- To celebrate the launch of this new site we are offering the first 100 corresponding authors Fellowships at no charge (This offer is now closed)
- Fellows joining in 2008 will not have to renew their Fellowship until December 2009
- Fees are waived for users in “Hinari” countries
Accepted Cases:
Click on the links below to view PDFs of accepted cases
