Case Report Writing Case Studies: Four Routes from Clinical Case to Published Report

Clinicians often have a valuable case but limited time to turn it into a publishable manuscript. Each case report writing case study below takes a common problem, the approach that solves it and the result it is designed to produce. The four scenarios cover the case report abstract, the CARE checklist, the end-to-end workflow and patient data de-identification [1, 3].

Challenge. The target journal returns the manuscript before peer review. The 290-word abstract exceeds the journal’s 250-word limit, spends half its length on background and never states the outcome [3].

Approach.

• Map the abstract against the CARE checklist abstract elements: introduction, main symptoms and clinical findings, diagnoses, interventions and outcomes, and the take-away lesson.
• Cut background to two sentences and keep only the findings that changed management.
• Add the outcome and follow-up period, and close with a one-sentence take-away lesson.
• Check every value in the abstract against the main text.

Result in this scenario. A 235-word abstract that meets the limit and follows the CARE order, ready for resubmission [1, 2]. Our guide on how to write a case report abstract walks through the same method.

Challenge. A pre-submission review against the 13-item CARE checklist finds four gaps: no timeline, no differential diagnosis, no adverse-event reporting and no patient perspective [1, 2].

Approach.

• Build a one-page timeline table of key clinical events.
• Add a paragraph on diagnostic challenges and the differential diagnosis.
• Report adherence, tolerability and adverse events at follow-up.
• Add a short patient perspective with the patient’s agreement, and record where each item sits in the completed checklist.

Result in this scenario. The completed CARE checklist goes in with the journal submission, so reviewers can focus on clinical interpretation rather than missing information [2, 3]. See the case report submission package for the other files a journal expects.

Challenge. The author has no publication experience and no plan for consent, data handling, journal choice or co-author review [3, 4].

Approach.

• Obtain written patient consent in week one, before data collection.
• De-identify the dataset and images with the hospital’s data protection contact.
• Confirm novelty with a focused literature search and agree a shortlist of three journals (see where to submit a case report).
• Draft to the CARE checklist and complete co-author review in ten days.

Result in this scenario. With one round of peer review, a plan like this puts publication about six months after the case is identified; journal turnaround decides the final date [1, 3]. The stages are mapped in our case report workflow.

Challenge. The first draft removes the patient’s name but keeps the exact age, town, admission dates and a facial photograph. Re-identification risk is high, and health data are a special category under the GDPR [4].

Approach.

• Pseudonymise working files and keep the key with the hospital.
• Replace exact dates with relative time and the exact age with an age range.
• Replace the facial photograph with a cropped image of the relevant feature, and strip image metadata.
• Let the patient review the final text before giving written informed consent.

Result in this scenario. The clinical lesson can be published without exposing the patient, and the consent record matches exactly what appears in print [3, 4]. Our guide to pseudonymisation in case reports covers the legal background.

The same principles recur in every scenario [1, 2, 3, 4]:

Each case report writing case study shows that most delays are preventable. Early patient consent, careful de-identification, drafting against the CARE checklist and a clear choice of target journal turn a strong clinical observation into a publishable report. If a reviewer has already returned your manuscript, start with our guide to revising a case report after rejection.