BioMed Central have launched a free Cases Database that allows clinicians, researchers, teachers and patients to explore peer-reviewed medical case reports from multiple journal publishers (including BMJ Group, BioMed Central and Springer). The database is freely accessible and contains 11627 cases from 100 different journals.

It is hoped that bringing together so many case reports will encourage the identification of trends and patterns, thereby providing researchers with hypotheses for further systematic research.

The database offers structured search and filtering by condition, symptom, intervention, pathogen, patient demographic and many other data fields, allowing fast identification of relevant case reports to support clinical practice and research.

Key features include:

•  Simple, semantically-enhanced search
•  ‘My Cases Database’ – save searches and favorite cases
•  Email alerting to new cases matching your interests
•  Download and export of search results
•  Faceted and advanced search
•  Links to full text of case reports in peer-reviewed journals
•  Social media integration

To make Cases Database as comprehensive as possible, BioMed Central is working with multiple publishers to include case reports, both open access and non-open access, from hundreds of journals. The database already includes data on more than 4000 case reports from BMJ Case Reports with further partnerships in development.

Richard Smith commented that “because most patients these days have not one condition but many we have to move beyond randomised trials, which usually exclude patients with comorbidities. A database of case reports will be invaluable in moving us forward.”

Richard has also written a blog: https://stg-blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2012/12/10/richard-smith-database-of-cases-launched/