Case Reports

Historically, case reports have been important for (1) recognizing new or rare diseases, (2) evaluating the therapeutic effects, adverse events, and costs of interventions; and (3) improving problem-based medical education. They provide evidence for effectiveness in a real-world setting, whereas clinical trials provide evidence for the efficacy of interventions in a controlled setting. Both are necessary. Case reports today make up an increasing percentage of the articles in peer-reviewed medical journals and have provided key milestones in our understanding of AIDS, Zika virus infections, and the side effects of thalidomide in the late 1950s. Case reports “have a high sensitivity for detecting novelty and are a cornerstone of medical progress” (Vandenbroucke 2001).

The CARE guidelines help increase the completeness, accuracy, and transparency of published case reports.

Case reports following CARE improve healthcare by:

  • Offering early signals of benefits, harms, and value

  • Providing information regarding resource utilization, including cost

  • Supporting clinical research with evidence from episodes of care

  • Providing feedback on the implementation of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs), and

  • Supporting medical education

The CARE Toolkit for Case Reports

The CARE guidelines and checklist provide authors with tools to write accurate and transparent case reports while providing medical journals with tools to critically evaluate and publish case reports. The CARE tools include the 2013 and 2017 CARE publications, the CARE checklist, translations, and CARE-writer.

What’s coming from the CARE initiative