title: The CARE Guidelines: Consensus-based Clinical Case Reporting Guideline Development.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  A case report is a narrative that describes, for medical, scientific, or educational purposes, a medical problem experienced by one or more patients. Case reports written without guidance from reporting standards are insufficiently rigorous to guide clinical practice or to inform clinical study design.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  Develop, disseminate, and implement systematic reporting guidelines for case reports.
  
  
  METHODS
  We used a three-phase consensus process consisting of (1) premeeting literature review and interviews to generate items for the reporting guidelines, (2) a face-to-face consensus meeting to draft the reporting guidelines, and (3) postmeeting feedback, review, and pilot testing, followed by finalization of the case report guidelines.
  
  
  RESULTS
  This consensus process involved 27 participants and resulted in a 13-item checklist-a reporting guideline for case reports. The primary items of the checklist are title, key words, abstract, introduction, patient information, clinical findings, timeline, diagnostic assessment, therapeutic interventions, follow-up and outcomes, discussion, patient perspective, and informed consent.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We believe the implementation of the CARE (CAse REport) guidelines by medical journals will improve the completeness and transparency of published case reports and that the systematic aggregation of information from case reports will inform clinical study design, provide early signals of effectiveness and harms, and improve healthcare delivery.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedic Surgery, University of Michigan, Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States.
authors.forename: Joel J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Gagnier
authors.affiliation: Institute for Applied Epistemology and Medical Methodology, University of Witten/Herdecke, Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Gunver
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kienle
authors.affiliation: Centre for Statistics in Medicine, University of Oxford, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Douglas G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Altman
authors.affiliation: Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ontario.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Moher
authors.affiliation: The Dartmouth Institute and Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, United States.
authors.forename: Harold
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sox
authors.affiliation: editor-in-chief, Global Advances in Health and Medicine, Portland, Oregon, United States.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Riley
keywords: Case report; EQUATOR Network; case study; health research reporting guidelines; meaningful use; patient reports