The value of reporting cases

Abstract

When I wrote my first case report and it was published in a premiere medical journal (1), I was thrilled. The acceptance meant the world to me. It was a remarkable case with a unique combination of coexisting problems. Most importantly, we thought it was a one-of-a-kind case of cryptococcal infection emerging in a Cushingoid patient who had become adrenally excessive by virtue of an ACTHsecreting lung cancer. We thought it was the first case of disseminated cryptococcosis secondary to endogenous steroid excess. Previously, cryptococcal infections secondary to Cushing’s syndrome had been associated with exogenous steroids. Four months later, a letter to the editor in the same journal (2) pointed out that our literature review had missed a previous similar case published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1959 (3). The respondent closed with ‘Does it matter who is first?’

(Published: 26 January 2012)

Citation: Journal of Community Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives 2011, 1: 15884 - DOI: 10.3402/jchimp.v1i4.15884