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Address for correspondence: Dr Daniel H Coelho, Department of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, Richmond, Virginia, USA Fax: +1 804 828 5799 E-mail: [email protected]
Dr D H Coelho takes responsibility for the integrity of the content of the paper
Portions of this study were presented at the 24th and 25th Sylvester O'Halloran Perioperative Scientific Symposia, 2–4 March 2016 and 2–4 March 2017 respectively, Limerick, Ireland.
Introduction
Case reports are the simplest form of descriptive study, long considered a valuable research and educational resource. They have been the cornerstone of medical education and training for decades. Nonetheless, their publication within the top medical journals has become substantially less commonplace.1 There are many explanations for this shift, especially in today's era where the importance of evidence-based medicine is stressed. The recent explosion of high-quality research may leave little room for anything else in journals where pages are limited. Moreover, as case reports are relatively low in the hierarchy of clinical decision-making (resting above only expert opinion), publishers may perceive a poor citation rate.2,3 By publishing only those papers likely to receive a high number of citations, journals may aim to maximally increase their impact factor. The converse, however, is also true. Publishing articles that are poorly cited, as is assumed regarding the case report, has been shown to have a negative effect on the impact factor of a journal.4
It remains to be seen whether the case report is worthy of its now tarnished reputation and declining publication rates. This study aimed to analyse trends in the publication and citation of classic case reports within otolaryngology – head and neck surgery, and to determine whether the general perception of low citation rates of case reports within the field is warranted.
Materials and methods
The Web of Science database (which also included both the Medline and Biosis online databases) was queried on 12 August 2016. Using the filters provided by the database (e.g. ‘document type = case report’, ‘language = English’ and ‘timespan = all years’), the top 10 otolaryngology – head and neck surgery journals (by impact factor, as per our previous study) were searched.5 Two authors (LWE, DHC) reviewed each article and included only...