How to write a case report/series

Throughout our careers, many of us often experience a unique challenge regarding a patient condition, whether surgical or not. This often leads to the question of whether there is any literature published regarding the case. If not, would other medical providers gain from the knowledge about this? The next steps may lead to a case report, which is a detailed description of a patient's diagnosis, treatment course, response to treatment and follow-up. 1 Guidelines to writing a clinical case report. Heart Views. 2017; 18: 104https://doi.org/10.4103/1995-705X.217857 Crossref PubMed Google Scholar The purpose of a case report is to highlight an unusual or novel aspect of a patient's treatment course. This may be in the form of the patient's presentation, the disease pathology, the management decisions, how treatment differs from standard management, and the overall outcome. Case reports serve to improve care. They can bring to light an unusual disease process or unusual presentation and the authors experience on work-up and management; present the positive or negative results of guideline implementation, share information on cost and resource utilization, or share the potential the benefits and harms of care. It is important for the author to understand the reason they are writing their case report and what they want their reader to get out of the manuscript so that they can focus their message as they prepare and draft their manuscript (see Table 1, Fig. 1). Table 1Steps to writing a case report/series. Steps Key Takeaways Obtain consent. Signed Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act authorization should be obtained from the patient(s) or legally authorized representative. Retrieve patient data and organize it into a database. Gathering patient information from: •Inpatient and outpatient notes •Laboratory results •Imaging studies. Maintain data in an organized database. Perform a literature search. Search multiple search engines. Solicit the services of a librarian to assist. Read the existing body of knowledge, including the most relevant references published within the last ten years. Select a journal and review submission guidelines. Make sure the journal meets the criteria of your literature search and data collection. Know the guidelines and requirements of the journal selected. Writing up the report should mirror the requirements. Draft a manuscript and an abstract. Manuscript should model the patient presentation and consists of a brief history of present illness, physical exam findings, laboratory results, and pertinent imaging studies. Abstract should be a brief that can gives the reader a general overview of the topic with the conclusion. Highlight salient aspects of the presentation. Choose an interesting title. Choose a title that is concise, interesting, and easy to find during a literature search on the subject. Open table in a new tab