Year: 2013
Type: article
Abstract: OBJECTIVES: To analyze the concept of "case series" in the medical literature compared with case reports. METHODS: A PubMed search for articles published during 2009 which had "case series" in their title was performed. A total number of 621 articles were retrieved. 586 papers were included in the analysis and 35 were excluded (18 were commentary letters, 5 were not in English, and twelve could not be retrieved by our Library). The number of patients and category of these articles were analyzed. RESULTS: The median (range) of the number of cases of articles having "case series" in their title was 7 (1-6432) cases. 186/ 586 articles had less than 5 cases (31.7%, 95% CI (28.3-35.1%)). The median (range) of the number of cases of articles having "case report" as their publication type was 4 (1-178) cases. Out of the 219 articles categorized as case reports 114 (52.1%, 95% CI (45.6-58.6%)) had less than five cases. CONCLUSIONS: The concept of "case series" is not well defined in the literature and does not reflect a specific research design. We suggest that a case series should have more than four patients while four paitents or less should be reported individually as case reports.
Source: African Health Sciences
DOI: 10.4314/ahs.v12i4.25
Authors: FM Abu-Zidan, AK Abbas, AI Hefny
Institution: United Arab Emirates University
Language: English
Subfield: History and Philosophy of Science
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W2125538352