Following the recent departure of the Journal of Medical Case Reports from BioMed Central’s portfolio, the medical journals in the BMC series have started considering case reports again.
BMC Gastroenterology has just published the first case report since this policy came to effect. The article ‘The clinicopathologic observation, c-KIT gene mutation and clonal status of gastrointestinal stromal tumor in the sacrum‘ by Li Gong and colleagues describes the clinicopathological characterization of a primary gastrointestinal stromal tumor of the sacrum.
Case reports allow the rapid and concise reporting of previously unknown treatment side effects, novel therapeutic approaches, unusual clinical associations and diagnostic dilemmas. They can make a significant contribution to the literature, particularly for medical specialties such as surgery or emergency medicine, where the development of clinical trials can be ethically or methodologically challenging.
Several case reports rank among the most accessed articles for several medical journals in the BMC series, which speak for the readers’ support for this article type. The article ‘Myocardial bridging as a cause of acute myocardial infarction: a case report’, published in BMC Cardiovascular Disorders for example, has been accessed over 22,000 times, while the case report ‘Confounding factors in diagnosing brain death: a case report‘ is the fourth most accessed article for BMC Neurology with more than 13,000 accesses.
The medical journals in the BMC series consider reports of unusual or exceptional cases that advance clinical knowledge. We welcome manuscripts reporting case reports falling under any of the categories below:
1. Unreported or unusual side effects or adverse interactions involving medications
2. Unexpected or unusual presentations of a disease
3. New associations or variations in disease processes
4. Presentations, diagnoses and/or management of new and emerging diseases
5. An unexpected association between diseases or symptoms
6. An unexpected event in the course of observing or treating a patient
7. Findings that shed new light on the possible pathogenesis of a disease or an adverse effect
You can submit your case report online by visiting the most appropriate journal within the BMC series.
We look forward to receiving your next case report.
Iratxe Puebla
Senior Editor, BMC-series journals
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