If you have a case worth writing up, publishing it with Cureus comes down to five steps: find the clinical lesson worth sharing, bring in a senior co-author, handle patient consent, follow a clear structure, and submit through Cureus’s system.
In this guide, you’ll learn:
- How to find the right case and bring in the right people early
- How to handle consent and privacy before you draft
- How to structure the report clinicians can follow
- How to write a title and abstract that get read
- How to tell the clinical story and discuss why it matters
- How to choose keywords and get ready to submit
Have a case that taught you something? Write it down.
Some cases stay with you.
Not always because they are rare. Sometimes because they are clear. Sometimes because they are messy. Sometimes because they remind you that real clinical medicine does not always behave like a board exam question.
A case report is built to capture exactly that kind of lesson.
A good case report does not need to be dramatic. It needs to be useful. It should help another clinician, trainee, researcher, or care team understand something better than they did before.
At Cureus, we publish case reports and case series, along with original research, reviews, technical reports, and editorials. A case report or case series presents details from real patient cases in medical or clinical practice.
Here is how to turn a clinical lesson into a case report worth reading.
Start with the point
Before writing, answer one question: What should another clinician learn from this case?
The lesson anchors the article.
Maybe the case shows a diagnostic delay. Maybe it highlights a treatment decision, a complication, a communication issue, a follow-up problem, or a pattern clinicians should recognize sooner.
The point is not to prove too much. A case report is not a randomized trial. It should not pretend to be one.
The point is to describe one clinical experience clearly, place it in context, and explain why it matters.
Work with the right people early
If this is your first case report, don't try to handle it entirely on your own.
Cureus recommends that first-time and junior authors work with an experienced senior author who can lead the author group, including for case reports.
A strong senior author can help you decide whether the case is appropriate, what the clinical takeaway should be, whether consent or institutional requirements apply, and how to avoid overstating the conclusion.
Involving a senior author isn't bureaucracy. It's what makes a case publishable.
Handle consent and privacy before you get too far
Case reports involve real patients, so ethics comes first.
If you are using patient data, make sure informed consent has been obtained. Cureus guidance states that authors should obtain patient consent for publication of case reports and anonymize patient details unless explicit written consent has been obtained.
Removing the patient's name is not enough. Dates, images, location, workplace, unusual timelines, and combinations of clinical facts can still make someone identifiable.
Before drafting too far, confirm:
- Patient consent requirements
- Institutional requirements
- Image permissions
- Author roles
- Conflicts of interest
- Whether the case can be fully de-identified
Expect this step to take time. Patient privacy is not a formatting detail.
Use a structure clinicians can follow
A case report should be easy to read because clinical time is limited.
A useful structure usually includes:
- Title
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Case presentation
- Diagnostic assessment
- Treatment or intervention
- Outcome and follow-up
- Discussion
- Conclusion
- Consent statement
- References
The CARE case report checklist includes core elements such as title, keywords, abstract, patient information, clinical findings, timeline, diagnostic assessment, intervention, follow-up and outcomes, discussion, patient perspective, and informed consent.
The reader should be able to follow: What happened? What did the team consider? What was done? What was the outcome? What should we learn?
Write a title people can find
Your title should be specific, searchable, and honest.
Cureus recommends concise, informative titles that use keywords reflecting the main findings while avoiding jargon, abbreviations, and unnecessary words.
Weak title: An Interesting Case of Abdominal Pain
Better title: Diagnostic Delay in [Condition] Presenting With Abdominal Pain: A Case Report
The better title tells readers what the case is about. It also gives search engines and indexing systems something useful to work with.
Skip the mystery. Tell clinicians exactly what they're getting.
Make the abstract earn the click
The abstract may be the only thing someone reads before deciding whether the full article is worth their time.
For a case report, the abstract should answer:
- What is the case?
- Why is it worth reporting?
- What happened clinically?
- What should readers take away?
Cureus recommends writing the abstract last and using it to briefly summarize the article, including background, objective, methods, results, and conclusion when relevant to the article type.
Do not oversell. One case can suggest, illustrate, warn, or clarify.
Tell the clinical story without dumping the chart
The case presentation is the heart of the report.
Include the details another clinician needs:
- Relevant history
- Presenting symptoms
- Physical exam findings
- Key labs and imaging
- Differential diagnosis
- Diagnostic reasoning
- Treatment or management
- Follow-up and outcome
Cut what does not help the reader understand the clinical lesson.
A case report is not a chart dump. It is a teaching document.
Use the discussion to explain why the case matters
The discussion is where the case becomes useful.
Here, you connect the case to existing literature, explain the clinical relevance, and acknowledge the limits of what one case can show.
Cureus writing guidance recommends comparing findings with previous studies, addressing limitations, and explaining the clinical or scientific impact of the work.
A strong discussion should:
- Compare the case with what is already known
- Explain what this case adds
- Be honest about limitations
- Avoid inflated claims
- End with a clear teaching point
A strong discussion doesn't overstate the case. It puts the finding in context.
Choose keywords like a clinician searching for help
Keywords help the right readers find the article.
Cureus requires authors to add five to 10 keywords when submitting and recommends using keywords naturally in the title, abstract, subheadings, and article text.
Choose terms related to the diagnosis, presentation, symptom, intervention, specialty, and article type.
Think about the clinician who may need this case later. What would they search?
Clean it up before submitting
Before submission, make sure the manuscript is clear, ethical, and complete.
Cureus recommends checking grammar and clarity, making sure figures and tables are labeled correctly, double-checking references, and getting feedback from co-authors and colleagues before submission.
Use this final check:
- Is the clinical lesson clear?
- Has consent been handled?
- Is the patient de-identified?
- Is the title specific?
- Does the abstract explain the value of the case?
- Is the case presentation complete but not bloated?
- Does the discussion connect the case to existing literature?
- Are limitations acknowledged?
- Are references accurate?
- Have all co-authors reviewed the final draft?
If yes, you are not just submitting a case. You are sharing a clinical lesson.
Ready to submit?
If a case taught your team something, it may teach someone else too.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What's the difference between a case report and a case series?
A: A case report describes a single patient case; a case series describes multiple related cases, typically five or fewer. Per Cureus's accepted article types, once a case series grows to six or more cases, it's treated as a retrospective study and must be submitted as an original article instead.
Q: How does consent work for patient photos or images in a case report?
A: Per Cureus's Author Guide, authors must obtain informed consent before including identifying patient images, and secure permission for any non-original images used. Case reports must include at least one figure unless imaging is unavailable or not essential to the diagnosis.
Q: Is the CARE checklist required for Cureus case reports?
A: No. Cureus does not list the CARE checklist as a formal submission requirement in its Author Guide. It's an internationally recognized best-practice standard for case report writing, and following it can improve clarity and completeness, but a completed checklist isn't required at submission.
Q: How long should a case report abstract be?
A: Per Cureus's Author Guide, abstracts should be written last and kept to roughly 150 to 250 words. It should briefly summarize the case, including relevant background, the clinical objective, what was found, and the takeaway, without subheadings, which Cureus reserves for original articles only.
Q: Is there a fee to publish a case report on Cureus?
A: Not automatically. Cureus has no standard article processing charge, and about a third of accepted submissions publish free. If a case report exceeds five authors or 20 references, or needs significant formatting and language fixes, authors must purchase Preferred Editing, Cureus's paid formatting and language service.
Q: How long does it take to get a case report published on Cureus?
A: Per Cureus's peer review overview, the median turnaround is 29 days from submission to publication, well under the months-long timelines common at traditional journals. Peer review itself typically completes in under 10 days, with articles moving quickly into copyediting after.
*This post was drafted with AI assistance and edited by our team before publishing.
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