Decline of case reports in pathology and their renewal in the digital age: an analysis of publication trends over four decades

Aims We investigated the trend in case reports (CRs) publication in a sample of pathology journals. Furthermore, we proposed an alternative publishing route through new digital communication platforms, represented by the ‘social media case report’. Methods 28 pathology journals were selected from SCImago database and searched in PubMed to identify the number of published CRs. Four reference decades (1981–2020) were selected. The 5-year impact factor (IF) was retrieved from the Academic Accelerator database. Results CRs increased during the first three decades (6752, 8698 and 11148, respectively; mean values: 355, 27.3%; 334, 26.4%; 398, 28.8%) as the number of CR-publishing journals (19, 26 and 28, respectively). In the last decade, CRs significantly decreased (9341; mean 334, 23.6%) without variation in the number of CR-publishing journals (28). Half of the journals reduced CRs (from −1.1% to −37.9%; mean decreasing percentage −14.7%), especially if active since the first decade (11/14, 79%); the other half increased CRs (from +0.5% to +34.2%; mean increasing percentage +11.8%), with 8/14 (57%) starting publishing in the first decade. The 5-year IF ranged from 0.504 to 5.722. Most of the journals with IF ≥2 (10/14, 71%) reduced the CRs number, while 71% of journals with IF <2 increased CRs publication (especially journals with IF <1, +15.1%). Conclusions CRs publication decreased during the last decade, especially for journals which are older or have higher IF. Social media CRs may represent a valid alternative and by using standardised templates to enter all relevant data may be organised in digital databases and/or transformed in traditional CRs.