Case Report Author Guidelines
Case reports submitted to The Journal should contain valuable clinical lessons. We invite case reports that present a treatment, ethical or management challenge, or that highlight aspects of medicinal treatment of educational value. Moreover, case reports should represent unique or informative findings with objectively evaluated causality; they should expand the clinician’s understanding of contemporary drug therapy. Case reports that detail a purported drug-induced effect or a drug-drug interaction are required to use and report the results of an objective assessment algorithm, such as the Naranjo algorithm (1). Case report manuscripts should contain a complete review of the relevant literature. The references below can be used for additional guidance in the writing of case reports (2,3).
Case reports should fulfill at least one of the following criteria:
Total Word Limits: 2500 including abstract, references, and any tables or figures
Abstract Word Limits: 250
Patient Consent
Ideally signed informed consent from the patient (or relatives/guardians) should be obtained prior to submitting a case report for consideration. Patient’s details and identifiers should be anonymized as much as possible and the patient should not be identifiable. If you cannot obtain consent, the head of your medical team/hospital, legal team, or Institutional Review Board must provide permission for the case report to be published.
References:
Case reports should fulfill at least one of the following criteria:
- Reminder of important clinical lessons
- Unusual adverse drug reaction or drug-drug interaction from a common medication
- Rare or new medication
- Novel medication treatment (new drug/intervention or an established drug/procedure in new situation)
- Unusual association of disease/medication
- Unexpected outcome (positive or negative) including adverse drug reactions
Total Word Limits: 2500 including abstract, references, and any tables or figures
Abstract Word Limits: 250
Patient Consent
Ideally signed informed consent from the patient (or relatives/guardians) should be obtained prior to submitting a case report for consideration. Patient’s details and identifiers should be anonymized as much as possible and the patient should not be identifiable. If you cannot obtain consent, the head of your medical team/hospital, legal team, or Institutional Review Board must provide permission for the case report to be published.
References:
- Naranjo CA, Busto U, Sellers EM, et al. A method of estimating the probability of adverse drug reactions. Clin Pharmacol Ther. 1981;30(2):239–245.
- Cohen H. How to write a patient case report. American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy. 2006;63(19):1888-1892. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2146/ajhp060182
- DeVane CL. What evidence is required for drug exposure to be causally associated with adverse events? The case for case reports published in Pharmacotherapy. Pharmacotherapy. 2013;33(2):115-117.