Radiology Case Reports: A New Peer-Reviewed, Open-Access Journal Specializing in Case Reports
Citation: Richardson ML, Chew FS. Radiology
Case Reports: A New Peer-Reviewed, Open-Access Journal Specializing in Case
Reports. Radiology Case Reports. [Online] 2006;1:7.
Copyright: © Michael L. Richardson. This is an open-access
article distributed
under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5
License, which permits unrestricted reproduction and distribution, provided
the original
work is properly cited. Commercial use and derivative works are not permitted.
Abbreviations: RCR, Radiology Case Reports; AJR, American
Journal of Roentgenology
Michael L. Richardson (E-mail: mrich@u.washington.edu) and Felix S. Chew
(E-mail:fchew@u.washington.edu) are in the Department of Radiology, University
of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, Washington, United States of
America.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests
exist.
Published: January 27, 2006
DOI: 10.2484/rcr.v1i1.7
Abstract
Although case reports have always had a place at the foundation of medical knowledge,
established radiology journals have increasingly focused their efforts on major
research studies. This
de-emphasis of case reports has resulted in a dearth of opportunities to publish
them. Case
reports continue to mark the frontiers of what we know as physicians, and have
long provided an attainable
way for fledging authors to learn the craft of scientific writing. For these
reasons
and others, we have
established Radiology Case Reports (RCR), a peer-reviewed journal specializing
in case reports, and have
gathered a distinguished Editorial Board to assist us. RCR offers open access
(free of subscription fees
or access charges) on the internet to the full text of its articles as soon as
they are published. We invite
interested persons to join us in helping this venerable but valuable form of
medical
journalism not only survive,
but flourish.
Editorial
Welcome to the inaugural issue of Radiology Case Reports (RCR), a new, all-electronic,
peer-reviewed, open-access medical journal specializing in radiology case reports.
Increasingly, the established radiology journals have focused their efforts
on bringing major research studies and review articles to their readers, while
simultaneously de-emphasizing case reports. This has resulted in diminished
opportunities for case report authors to have their work published.
We believe that case reports have always had an important role in the advancement
of medical knowledge. Classic disorders such as Paget's disease [1] and Parkinson's
disease [2] first entered the scientific medical literature in the form of
case reports. One of our own first personal encounters with what the world
now knows as AIDS was in the form of a 1982 AJR case report describing the
unusual combination of fatal pneumocystis pneumonia, cryptococcosis, and Kaposi
sarcoma in a homosexual man [3].
Even today, case reports continue to mark the frontiers of what we know as
physicians. This frontier is crossed on a daily or weekly basis by every practicing
radiologist, when we find ourselves peering at a finding, scratching our heads
and muttering, "What the heck is that?" Sometimes this question is
answered after a moment's reflection and other times only after showing the
case to one's colleagues, one of whom might have seen such a case in the past.
Some answers require a trip to the textbooks or PubMed. At these times, it
can be very comforting to find a bread crumb trail in the literature left by
others who have seen the same weird finding and have taken the time to investigate
it and write it up for posterity.
For many academicians, case reports also mark another sort of border-that between
those who have published and those who have not. While every academic career
begins with a single publication, most of us in academics did not get our start
by writing up a major research study.
Case reports have long provided a very attainable way for fledgling authors
to learn the craft of scientific writing. One of our goals with RCR is to allow
this fine tradition to continue, and we welcome authors with all levels of
experience.
For these reasons and others, we feel that an end to case reports in the
medical literature would be a grave loss for all of us.
The idea for an online journal of case reports is not a new one. Both of
us can recall hearing this idea bounced around again and again in a variety
of
radiologic bull sessions over the past few years. The idea gained currency
for us over the past year, as we noted increasing submission rates but decreasing
acceptance rates for case reports in the American Journal of Roentgenology
(AJR), the last large-circulation general radiology journal to accept them.
When AJR recently announced that it had stopped accepted submission of case
reports, it seemed to us that the time was finally right for a new journal.
After examining assorted options, we decided that the only sure way to make
this happen was to do it ourselves, so we rolled up our sleeves and got to
work.
This might be a good time to point out that RCR is a full-fledged peer-reviewed
journal, not Yet Another Web-Based Teaching File. Each published article
first undergoes rigorous peer review by experts in the field. This review
process
is designed to be a prompt and constructive way to not only approve but also
improve submitted manuscripts. Our Editorial Board includes distinguished
faculty members with international reputations from major academic centers,
all of
them published authors and many with significant editorial experience (Table
1).
| Table 1. Editorial Board of Radiology Case Reports | |
Board Member |
Institution |
| Mark W. Anderson, MD | University of Virginia |
| Deborah A. Baumgarten, MD, MPH | Emory University |
| Johan G. Blickman, MD, PhD | UMC Nijmegan, The Netherlands |
| Ethan M. Braunstein, MD | Mayo Clinic |
| Mauricio Castillo, MD | University of North Carolina |
| Vikram Dogra, MD | University of Rochester |
| Stephen J. Eustace, MD | National Orthopaedic Hospital, Dublin, Ireland |
| Brian S. Funaki, MD | University of Chicago |
| Brian S. Garra, MD | University of Vermont |
| Garry E. Gold, MD | Stanford University |
| Timothy B. Hunter, MD | University of Arizona |
| Ella A, Kazerooni, MD | University of Michigan |
| Susanna I. Lee, MD, PhD | Massachusetts General Hospital |
| Angela D. Levy, MD, LTC, MC | Armed Forces Institute of Pathology |
| Robert Lopez-Ben, MD | University of Alabama |
| Donna Magid, MD, MEd | Johns Hopkins University |
| Catherine Maldjian, MD | New York Medical College |
| David M. Panicek, MD | Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center |
| Annemarie Relyea-Chew, JD, MS | University of Washington |
| Catherine C. Roberts, MD | Mayo Clinic |
| James G. Smirniotopoulos, MD | Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences |
| Edward V. Staab, MD, MS | Wake Forest University School of Medicine |
| Ralph Weissleder, MD, PhD | Massachusetts General Hospital |
| Gary J. Whitman, MD | University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
|
As a new journal, we have the opportunity to do some things a bit differently.
For starters, RCR has a different economic model from other radiology journals.
Rather than taking submissions, bundling them together, and selling subscriptions
or charging readers for access [4], we provide open (free) access to our articles
to anyone on the internet, immediately upon publication. We charge authors
a modest fee for editing and production of accepted manuscripts, and to support
our non-profit publication operation. By avoiding marketing and subscriber
servicing costs, and by not having a print version, we are able to keep our
fee low. However, it is also our intent that lack of ability to pay not present
an insurmountable barrier to publication.
We also endorse the idea that authors, rather than journals should control
the copyright to their articles. RCR allows authors to keep the copyright to
their manuscript and images, requiring only first publication rights and the
ability to use the material in compilations and other derivative works. Traditional
radiology journals require authors to sign over their complete copyright, and
by restricting access to the published articles through subscriptions or other
means, they limit the dissemination of those authors' works.
Electronic journals have the potential to be considerably more nimble than
paper and ink journals. This has already resulted in significantly decreased
publication times in the electronic versions of some of the established radiology
journals. We, however, hope to push this envelope even further. There is no
need to wait for some arbitrary number of articles to accrete before we can
publish an issue-we will publish as soon as an article is finished with its
layout editing. Our current plan is to publish manuscripts within 30 days of
acceptance.
A number of publication biases have crept into the world's literature over
the years, and can be much more successfully exorcised in an electronic journal
than in paper and ink, with their inherent expenses.
The first of these biases could be considered a "space" bias: publishing
only the articles that will fit within a given page quota. RCR is not bound
by any arbitrarily fixed issue size-hard disk space is cheap, and we will publish
all articles that meet our standards for peer review.
Another common bias in print journals is the bias against negative studies:
a drug study showing a positive result is far more likely to published than
one with a negative result. However, negative studies represent valuable signposts
on the road of research that tell future investigators, "Don't go there!".
The bias against such studies has doubtless caused many subsequent researchers
to blindly stumble over the same ground. We will not discriminate among articles
based on results-if a new or untried technique does not work, that is important
news that we are happy to disseminate.
A final bias in print journals could be called a "bias toward the weird":
a tendency to only publish a concept or finding which has never before been
published. This bias has had a particularly pernicious effect on case reports,
tending to select for the more unusual reports and against the ones more likely
to be seen ever again. This bias also tends to help obfuscate the prevalence
of rare findings-if only the first case of something is ever reported, how
will any of the others ever reach the literature? This bias also works against
one of the major tools of scientific research: the duplication of unusual or
controversial results. A single report about a disorder only gives the world
a single set of limited data about that disorder. We will be happy to accept
multiple case reports of the same phenomenon. When sufficient cases have accumulated,
they can be grouped into a series, from which we can learn much more about
the average and range of these phenomena.
RCR also encourages active discussion of our published manuscripts, and registered
readers are encouraged to post their comments on these manuscripts online.
We welcome suggestions for improvement. We also encourage volunteers who share
RCR's principles to help with any facet of the journal's operation - whether
as reader, author, reviewer or section editor. To this end, over 100 reviewers,
well regarded for their contributions to the radiologic literature, have already
agreed to lend their talents to RCR.
To learn more about RCR, how the e-journal process works, and how to publish
here, please peruse our website. You may also sign up for our free email notification
service, announcing new issues as they are published.
We deeply appreciate the encouragement and support we have already received
from our colleagues in the radiology community. Thank you very much for your
time and talents.
Felix S. Chew, M.D.
Michael L. Richardson, M.D.
University of Washington
Seattle, WA
References
1. Paget J. On a form of chronic inflammation of bones (osteitis deformans).
Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, London, 1877, 60: 37-63.
2. Parkinson J. An Essay on the Shaking Palsy. London, Whittingham & Rowland,
1817.
3. Godwin JD, Ravin CE, Roggli VL. Fatal pneumocystis pneumonia, cryptococcosis, and Kaposi sarcoma in a homosexual man. AJR 1982;138(3):580-1. [PubMed]
4. Chew FS, Llewellyn K, Olsen KM. Electronic publishing in radiology: economics
and the future. J Am Coll Radiol 2004;1:815-23. [CrossRef]
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Call For Papers
Radiology Case Reports began publication in January, 2006. We invite you to support the first peer-reviewed journal established specifically to publish case reports in radiology by submitting case report manuscripts for publication.
To submit a case for review, first register with the site as an author (there is no charge for this). When you log in as an author, you will be guided through the submission process.