Case Reports and Reviews: Open Access

Case Reports and Reviews: Open Access specialises in the publication of clinical case reports and case series. Because such articles necessarily involve the clinical details of individual patients, the journal imposes strict requirements regarding patient consent and the protection of patient privacy. These requirements apply to all manuscript types involving patient data, including case reports, case series, and clinical images.

Requirement for Written Informed Consent
All manuscripts reporting on individual patients or small patient groups must include evidence of written informed consent obtained from each patient (or their legal guardian or next of kin, where the patient is a minor or lacks capacity). Consent must be obtained before the patient's clinical information is used for publication purposes, not retrospectively. Authors must confirm, within the manuscript's Methods or Ethics section, that written informed consent was obtained. A statement to this effect is mandatory and must appear in the published article.

Privacy and Confidentiality
Patient privacy is paramount. Authors must take all reasonable steps to protect the identity of patients reported in their manuscripts, including:

• Removing or anonymising all directly identifiable information, including full names, dates of birth, hospital record numbers, and residential addresses
• Ensuring that combinations of indirect identifiers — such as occupation, place of treatment, and approximate age — do not render a patient identifiable
• Obtaining explicit consent for any information that could directly or indirectly identify the patient

Patient Images
Clinical photographs, radiological images, histological images, and other visual representations of patients are subject to additional consent requirements. Explicit written consent must be obtained for the publication of any image from which a patient could be identified, even partially. Authors must confirm that consent specifically covers the use of those images in an open-access, publicly accessible journal. Where appropriate, the editorial office may request that identifying features be obscured prior to publication.

Identifiable Information
Authors should not include patient-identifiable information in their manuscripts unless it is directly relevant to the clinical report and the patient has explicitly consented to its inclusion. Where identifiable information is scientifically necessary, the editorial office must be notified and the consent documentation must explicitly cover that specific information.

Ethics Committee Approval
Where applicable, authors should provide details of institutional ethics committee or review board approval for their case report. While single case reports are frequently exempt from formal ethics review in many jurisdictions, the editorial office may request evidence of exemption or approval where the nature of the report warrants it.

Consent Withdrawal
If a patient withdraws consent after publication, the journal will consider appropriate action in a manner consistent with the published Corrections & Retractions policy and applicable ethical standards. Complete removal of a published article may not always be feasible from the perspective of scholarly record integrity. Where possible, identifying information may be removed or obscured in a corrected version of the article.

Editorial Verification
The editorial office reserves the right to request a copy of signed patient consent documentation at any stage of the submission, review, or post-publication process. Authors may be required to submit the journal's Patient Consent Form, available on request from casereports@gnoscience.com. Failure to provide consent documentation upon request may result in rejection or retraction of the article. Authors are advised to retain all original consent documentation for a minimum of five years following publication.