Journal of Clinical Case Reports and Images Aims & Scope
Aims & Scope
JCCI publishes case-based clinical evidence and clinically meaningful images that clarify diagnosis, management, complications, procedures, outcomes, or an important lesson from patient care.
What JCCI publishes
The Journal of Clinical Case Reports and Images (JCCI), published by Open Access Pub, is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal of patient-based clinical observations and clinically meaningful images. Its core formats are Case Report, Clinical Images, Case Series and Technical Note. Each submission must document a human clinical case or related cases with a defined diagnostic, management, procedural, safety or educational contribution.
The journal is general across medicine, surgery and allied clinical specialties. Subject area alone does not establish fit: the manuscript should explain what was observed, how the diagnosis or management decision was reached, what evidence supports the interpretation, and why the record is useful beyond the individual encounter.
What makes a case suitable
Rarity can be informative, but it is not the only basis for publication. A familiar condition may fit when its presentation, differential, management, complication, image, or outcome carries a clear clinical lesson. A submission need not describe the first reported case of a condition.
Recognition
A rare, atypical or easily mistaken presentation described well enough for another clinician to recognize it.
Diagnostic reasoning
A differential diagnosis, investigation sequence or clinicopathological correlation that explains how the conclusion was reached.
Management and course
A meaningful treatment response, complication, procedural decision, safety observation or unexpected outcome reported with appropriate context.
Documentation
A coherent timeline with interpretable images, laboratory findings, pathology or procedural evidence that supports the clinical account.
Clinical areas and interdisciplinary cases
The journal receives case-based work across clinical practice. These groupings are illustrative, not an exhaustive specialty list. Suitability depends on the clinical record and its contribution, including in specialties represented less often in the journal.
- Medicine and acute care
- Internal medicine and its subspecialties, infectious disease, antimicrobial resistance, emergency medicine, anesthesia, intensive care and resuscitation.
- Surgery and procedures
- General and emergency surgery, perioperative care, procedural complications, retained material, devices, interventional practice and postoperative recovery.
- Imaging and diagnostic correlation
- Radiology, endoscopy, image-guided findings, pathology, histology, cytology, microscopy and laboratory results interpreted with the clinical picture.
- Cardiovascular, neurological and musculoskeletal care
- Cardiac, vascular and thoracic medicine; neurology and neurosurgery; trauma, orthopedics, joints, tendons, soft tissue and rehabilitation.
- Maternal, neonatal and pediatric care
- Obstetrics, gynecology, fetal and neonatal care, and presentations across infancy, childhood and adolescence.
- Specialty and multidisciplinary practice
- Hematology, oncology, dermatology, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, oral medicine and other allied specialties when the submission documents a clinically meaningful case or image.
How interdisciplinary work fits
Cases may connect clinical care with imaging, pathology, laboratory findings, genetics, pharmacotherapy, surgery, rehabilitation or other disciplines. Telemedicine, digital diagnostics, patient safety, global health and medical education may provide the context or learning point when a defined clinical question is answered through a documented patient case.
The contribution should explain how these elements informed diagnosis, management or interpretation. A standalone technology evaluation, laboratory study, teaching program or health-service study does not become a case report simply because its subject is medical.
Image-based submissions may use radiology, pathology or histology, endoscopy, ophthalmic imaging, dermatologic photography, surgical or procedural images, diagnostic microscopy, or another clinically informative modality. The submission should identify the modality, orientation and relevant finding, and provide the history, investigation and outcome needed to understand its significance.
Images should be technically adequate, de-identified and annotated where interpretation depends on a location or feature. Where a conclusion depends on correlation—for example, imaging with histopathology or a preoperative study with an operative finding—the connected evidence should be presented.
Clinical video and moving images
Video is a way of presenting clinical evidence, not a separate manuscript category. Authors considering a clinical recording should confirm supported file formats and publication arrangements with the editorial office before submission. Recordings require the same clinical context, interpretation, permissions and patient protection as still images.
Clinical context
The image is accompanied by the case details required to understand why it matters.
Interpretability
Modality, orientation, scale, staining, magnification or acquisition information is supplied where relevant.
Annotation
Labels and arrows identify important findings without obscuring the evidence being shown.
Patient protection
Consent, de-identification and image permissions are addressed before submission.
- Case Report
- A detailed account of an individual patient's presentation, diagnostic reasoning, management, outcome and clinical learning point.
- Clinical Images
- A concise image-centered report in which one or more clinically meaningful images are interpreted with sufficient patient context.
- Case Series
- A structured account of related patients that states how cases were selected, the methods used, outcomes and follow-up, and the limitations of any pattern described.
- Technical Note
- A focused account of a clinical, diagnostic, surgical or procedural technique demonstrated in a documented patient case or related cases, with enough detail to assess its application, reproducibility and safety considerations.
Diagnostic challenges, rare or atypical presentations, complications, unexpected treatment responses and educational cases describe the contribution within these formats. They are not additional manuscript categories.
Evidence and interpretation
What case-based evidence can contribute
A case report can document an observation, support clinical learning, identify a diagnostic or safety signal and generate a hypothesis for further study. A case series can describe recurring features within the reported patients when its selection and methods are stated clearly.
Where the evidence stops
An individual case does not independently establish treatment efficacy, prove causality, estimate disease prevalence, establish population-level safety or comparative superiority, or provide the basis for clinical practice guidelines. A case series also requires careful treatment of selection bias, alternative explanations and the absence of an appropriate comparison group. Authors should distinguish observation from interpretation and avoid therapeutic recommendations broader than the evidence permits.
Consent for publication
Authors obtain written informed consent from the patient for publication of the case details and images, and include a patient consent statement in the manuscript.
Identifiable images
Patient-identifiable images and recordings require explicit consent for publication. Removing identifiers does not automatically remove the need for consent or make a case eligible for publication.
Ethics and transparency
Ethics approval is reported where required. Authors disclose contributions, funding and competing interests accurately.
Reporting standard
The CARE checklist guides individual case reports. Case series should state selection, methods, outcomes and limitations and use reporting guidance appropriate to their design.
Names, record numbers, dates of birth, institutional identifiers and equivalent details—including information embedded in an image or its metadata—should be removed before submission. Applicable privacy and data-protection law in the jurisdiction where care was provided also continues to apply.
When consent cannot be obtained
Authors must explain the circumstances to the editorial office before proceeding. Any exception requires assessment under the journal's policies, applicable law and institutional requirements. De-identification alone is not permission to publish.
Author pathway and scope boundaries
JCCI is generally best suited to
Case-based clinical observations and clinically informative images that clarify recognition, diagnostic reasoning, management, procedures, complications, outcomes, patient safety or a transferable educational point.
Outside the scope of new submissions
- Standalone basic-science, laboratory or computational studies without a documented human clinical case as the central evidence
- Animal-only or veterinary reports; a human case involving zoonotic disease or environmental exposure may fit when the human clinical record is central
- Routine cases that do not identify a diagnostic, management, procedural or educational contribution
- Images presented without adequate clinical context, interpretation, permission or de-identification
- Standalone population studies, clinical trials, systematic reviews, meta-analyses or narrative reviews; focused literature discussion and relevant population data may support an eligible case report
- Pure technical or device papers without a documented clinical case, generic opinions, and therapeutic claims unsupported by the reported evidence
These criteria guide new submissions. Previously published articles remain part of the scholarly record and do not automatically establish eligibility for a new manuscript.
Does the manuscript fit JCCI?
Confirm the article type, patient-consent requirements, clinical-image preparation and reporting guidance before choosing a submission route.
Journal of Clinical Case Reports and Images · JCCI · ISSN 2641-5518 · Open Access Pub