Every clinician encounters patients whose disease or response to management is atypical.
Unexpected behavior by a disease can be puzzling and a cause for concern for both doctor and patient. The case report, a published account by a physician about an unusual patient, is a time-honored way for physicians to share such experience. Descriptions of similar cases, like consultants or the conventional literature, can illuminate and sometimes point the way. But the case report, a staple of medical literature since Hippocrates, has fallen out of favor in recent decades. Editors today are devoting less and less space to case reports, and some publish none.