A case report is a detailed description of an individual patient case. It focuses on documenting a unique or exceptional situation, such as a rare diagnosis, treatment, or follow-up. Case reports also include some demographic information about the patient (e.g., age, gender, ethnic origin).
The main goal of a case report is to share knowledge about such unusual cases, often with the aim of raising awareness among physicians and researchers of unknown or rare clinical phenomena. It is a descriptive report without systematic comparison or statistical analysis. Hypotheses are often not tested.
As many journals require an EC opinion for case reports, we recommend submitting them to EC Research.
A case report may be submitted directly to EC using the tool below, no submission to CTC is required. When multiple case reports involving several patients with a similar presentation are collected from different centers, and in this way data from a patient at UZ Leuven are shared with another center, a DTA (Data Transfer Agreement) must be established for this purpose. Please use the template. This application is also registered in the registration form as a case report.
If a study has a broader scope, and its primary aim is to analyze a condition within a specific context—often with a focus on generating hypotheses or investigating complex relationships—it should be registered in the registration form as a retrospective study (if only retrospective data are used), or as an experiment (if prospective data are also collected and the study qualifies as such).
ICF template for case report
In addition to the ICF (without the patient's name), please also provide us with a brief explanation (covering letter) of the case description. The ICF can only be signed by the patient after EC submission and approval. Make sure that you do not provide the name of a patient to EC.