How to Perform a Literature Review for a Case Report

A literature review for a case report is a focused, documented search for similar cases, reviews and guidelines that shows what is already known and what your case adds. It need not be exhaustive, but it must be honest and reproducible enough that you can defend any claim of novelty.

Steps

1. List the key features of your case: condition, unusual feature, drug or procedure, outcome.
2. Build a search with MeSH and free-text synonyms for each feature (see How to Search PubMed Effectively). Use the "Case Reports" publication type to find similar reports.
3. Search at least two sources (for example PubMed and another database such as Embase or Scopus, or Google Scholar as a supplement).
4. Screen and read the most relevant reports and reviews.
5. Tabulate similar cases: age, presentation, treatment, outcome, source.
6. Record databases, dates and search strings.
7. State the result in the discussion, using careful wording.

What to look for

• Reports with similar features, and how they differ from yours.
• Reviews or guidelines that set out the expected course.
• Safety signals or pharmacovigilance reports for drugs.

Illustrative example

Invented for teaching. A resident searches for "delayed hypersensitivity" and a named antibiotic, finds 12 cases, extracts onset times and outcomes into a table, and sees that none reported onset before day 10. Her case, with onset on day 8, is therefore described as an earlier presentation, "among the reports we found".

Common pitfalls

• Claiming "first case" after one search.
• Ignoring non-English or older reports without saying so.
• Not recording the search.

Key takeaways

• Search, tabulate, compare and document.
• Use cautious wording ("to our knowledge", "among the reports we identified").

This page is general educational information about research methods. It is not medical, legal or regulatory advice; follow your institution's ethics board and your target journal's instructions.