On this page

• 1. Manuscript Eligibility and Scope
• 2. Article Types Accepted
• 3. Contacting the Editorial Office
• 4. Manuscript Preparation
• 5. Ethical Responsibilities of Authors
• 6. Ethical Policies (Compliance with Ethical Standards)
• 7. Post-Acceptance
• 8. Article Processing Charges
• 9. License to Publish

An appeal from the founder of EJMCR

Welcome to the European Journal of Medical Case Reports. We serve the healthcare community by publishing clinically useful case-based work. Article processing charges, where applicable, help meet the costs of publication. We welcome reviewers from a range of specialties to help assess submissions and share clinical insights. Interested professionals may contact the Editorial Office to express their interest in reviewing.

Submission Guidelines for the European Journal of Medical Case Reports (EJMCR)

European Journal of Medical Case Reports is a not-for-profit journal. We follow ethical publishing practices as recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Important: Authors can withdraw a manuscript from editorial consideration before peer review begins. Once peer review has commenced, withdrawal is subject to editorial approval.

1. Manuscript Eligibility and Scope

To ensure each manuscript contributes meaningfully to the medical community, all submissions must fulfill at least one of the following criteria:

• Diagnostic or treatment challenges with significant clinical insights.
• Findings suggesting new mechanisms of disease pathogenesis or adverse effects.
• Lessons learned from misdiagnoses or clinical errors.
• Unusual presentations of common diseases or injuries.
• Rare or newly identified diseases with clinical significance.
• Novel diagnostic procedures or techniques with implications for practice.
• New therapeutic approaches, including innovative drugs/interventions and established treatments in novel contexts.
• Unusual associations between diseases and symptoms that broaden diagnostic awareness.
• Unexpected outcomes, both positive and negative, including adverse drug reactions impacting clinical decision-making.

2. Article Types Accepted

EJMCR accepts the following article types:

• Case Reports: detailed reports of individual clinical cases offering new insights.
• Case Series: small patient series identifying trends, treatment responses, or rare disease clusters.
• Editorials: perspectives on emerging clinical issues.
• Review Articles: narrative or systematic reviews related to specific diseases, syndromes, or case-based themes.
• Original Articles: clinical or observational studies derived from case-based experiences or focused on specific medical conditions, techniques, or syndromes.
• Short Communications and Technical Notes: brief reports or innovations in diagnosis or management.
• Surgical Videos and Illustrative Techniques: visual demonstrations of new or modified clinical or surgical approaches.
• Clinical Audits: at least two-cycle audits evaluating clinical practice against established standards.
• Letters to the Editor: correspondence on clinical issues or published articles.
• Image Articles: interesting medical images and scans.

All manuscripts must be submitted through our online submission system. The editors reserve the right to return manuscripts not adhering to these guidelines.

3. Contacting the Editorial Office

For any inquiries, authors are encouraged to contact the EJMCR Editorial Office at contact@ejmcr.com for timely assistance throughout the submission process.

4. Manuscript Preparation

General Format

Submission Files: All articles require a separate title page and an anonymized main text file. Additional files depend on the article type:

• Title Page: Required for all articles. Include the manuscript title, author names with full affiliations, and contact information for the corresponding author. Upload it as an additional file, separate from the main text.
• Main Text File: Required for all articles. Include the abstract where required for the article type, main text, tables, embedded figures, and references. To support double-blind peer review, omit author names, affiliations, identifying acknowledgments, and identifying document metadata; provide identifying information separately on the title page.
• CARE Checklist: Required for applicable case reports; upload the completed checklist as an additional file. It is not required for every article type. The Downloads section also provides the Clinical Audit Submission Checklist. Follow the reporting-checklist requirements applicable to your article type.

Please see the Downloads Section on our website for a sample Title Page and CARE Checklist.

Formatting Specifications:

• Line Numbers: Add continuous line numbers to the main text. If you are using MS Word, go to Layout --> Line Numbers --> Continuous.
• Spell Check: Use American English and proofread all files before submission. 

Title Page

The title should be specific, informative, and concise. Provide each author’s name and affiliation, including their department, institution, city, postal code, and country. Also, include the fax, telephone number, and email of the corresponding author. Each author’s contribution to the manuscript and their role in patient care should be clearly stated. See the download section of our website for a sample title page.

Abstract

Abstract requirements vary by article type; follow the manuscript requirements table below.

• Case Reports: Use the following subheadings: Background, Case Presentation, and Conclusion, limited to 200 words.
• Original Articles and Clinical Audits: Use the following subheadings: Background, Aims and objectives, Settings, Methods, Results, and Conclusion.
• Case Series: Provide an unstructured abstract of up to 250 words.
• Review Articles: Provide an unstructured abstract of 200–250 words, as specified in the table.
• Short Communications and Technical Notes, Surgical Videos and Illustrative Techniques, Image Articles, and Letters to the Editor: An abstract is not required.

Provide 5–8 MeSH keywords for subject indexing. 

Main Text

The main text must adhere to the following word limits (excluding the title page, references, tables, and figure legends):

Types of Manuscripts:

Caption

Types of Manuscripts	Abstract	Main text (Word Count)	Tables / figures	References	Article Processing Charges *
Case Reports	200 words (structured with subheadings)	1800 words	6	15	€ 220 + Tax
Case Series	250 words (unstructured)	2500 words	8	20	€ 220 + Tax
Original Articles	250 words (structured with subheadings)	2500 words	8	30	No APC
Review Articles	200-250 words (unstructured)	3500 words	10	50	No APC
Letters to the Editor	Not required	350 words	1	3	€ 40 + Tax
Short Communications and Technical Notes	Not required	700 words	2	5	€ 75 + Tax
Surgical Videos and Illustrative Techniques	Not required	500 words	2	5	€ 75 + Tax
Clinical Audit	200 words (structured with subheadings)	2000 words	4	10	€ 220 + Tax
Image Articles	Not required	350 words	1	3	€ 40 + Tax

Structure of the main text:

Section headings vary by article type. The case-report structure below applies to case reports; original articles and clinical audits use Methods and Results as appropriate. Other article types should use headings suited to their content.

• Background: Context and significance of the case.
• Case Presentation (or Methods and Results for research articles): Detailed clinical findings or methods.
• Discussion: Interpretation in the context of existing literature.
• Conclusion: Summary of clinical implications.

Post-article information:

• Acknowledgment: List contributors and sources of support.
• List of Abbreviations.
• Declarations: Conflict of Interest, Funding, Consent, Ethical Approval.

Declarations:

Conflict of Interest: Disclose any conflicts of interest; if there are none, you can state the following:

Example: "The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this article."

Informed Consent for Publication: Authors must state whether appropriate written informed consent for publication was obtained. Consent for medical treatment or participation in research does not automatically constitute consent for publication. Where a patient is capable of providing valid consent, consent for publication should be obtained directly from that patient. For children or patients who cannot provide valid consent, permission must be obtained from an appropriately authorised parent, guardian or representative in accordance with applicable legal and institutional requirements. Where a patient is deceased, authors must follow applicable confidentiality, legal and institutional requirements; being a relative or next of kin does not, by itself, establish legal authority to consent to publication. Identifying clinical information or images require particular care, including consideration of indirect identification.

Example declaration: "Written informed consent for publication was obtained from the patient."

Where consent was provided by an authorised representative: "Written informed consent for publication was obtained from an appropriately authorised representative in accordance with applicable requirements."

Where consent could not be obtained: Authors must explain the circumstances to the Editorial Office before publication. This does not establish an automatic exemption or permission to publish identifiable information without consent.

For further guidance on ethics approval, patient confidentiality and informed consent for publication, see EJMCR's Protection of Research Participants policy.

Ethical Approval: Authors must state whether research ethics committee or institutional review board approval was required for the work and, where applicable, provide the approving body, institution, approval reference and relevant date. If approval was not required or an exemption was granted, the manuscript must accurately explain the applicable basis. Requirements depend on the study design and relevant institutional and legal rules. Research ethics approval and informed consent for publication are separate requirements.

Example: "Ethical approval is not required at our institution for anonymous case reports."

Or

Ethical approval was granted by Ethics Committee/Institutional Review Board/Research Committee (choose whichever is applicable) via reference/letter number ---- dated: -----.

Funding: 

Disclose all funding sources. If no funding was received, state "None." 

References:

References and In-Text Citations: Authors are responsible for reference accuracy. Consult the NLM reference guidance for citation details. The recommended number of references for case reports is 10–15.

Format:

• Use square brackets [1] for in-text citations, and they must be placed before punctuation marks.
• List references in order of appearance, with full journal titles where possible.
• For references with more than six authors, list the first three, followed by "et al."

Example: Blinder JJ, Goldstein SL, Lee VV, et al. Congenital heart surgery in infants: effects of acute kidney injury on outcomes. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2012;143(2):368-74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtcvs.2011.06.021

Figures and Illustrations:

• Quality Control: Images must be reviewed by relevant specialists.
• Submission Format: Embed figures in the main document at submission; separate image files are not routinely required at this stage. Original high-resolution figure files may be requested for production or verification.
• Resolution: Minimum 300 dpi for images.
• Image integrity: AI-generated clinical images must not be presented as authentic patient images. Disclose material alterations to clinical images. In accordance with the publisher’s policy, submit original, unedited images to the editor and reviewers where images have been adjusted for clarity. Source images must be de-identified to protect patient confidentiality; the journal may request original, de-identified source images to verify authenticity.

5. Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

Authors must adhere to ethical standards to uphold the integrity of the scientific record. This journal aligns with COPE guidelines for ethical publishing and will address potential misconduct accordingly.

Authors must:

• Ensure the manuscript is not under simultaneous consideration by other journals.
• Avoid duplicate publication, unless extending prior work with transparency.
• Avoid data fabrication or manipulation.
• Refrain from plagiarism; proper attribution is essential.
• Confirm consent from all co-authors and affiliated institutions.
• Ensure that every listed author satisfies all four ICMJE authorship criteria: substantial contribution to the work; drafting or critical intellectual review; final approval of the version to be published; and agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work. Contributors who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged appropriately rather than listed as authors.
• Address any authorship changes or disputes with documented consent.
• Cooperate with reasonable editorial requests for supporting data, source information or relevant documentation, subject to patient confidentiality, informed consent, applicable law and legitimate data-access restrictions. Identifiable patient records and consent documents must not be publicly disclosed or routinely supplied to reviewers.
• If misconduct is suspected, EJMCR may investigate and take necessary actions, which could include rejection, retraction, or notifying the author’s institution.

Use of generative AI: In accordance with the publisher’s ethical policies, disclose any use of generative AI in manuscript preparation in the Methods or Acknowledgments section, specifying the tool and its purpose. Authors remain responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of the manuscript. AI tools cannot be listed as authors. The publisher permits AI-assisted manuscript preparation for language editing, translation, or formatting; using AI to fabricate, manipulate, or misrepresent data or results constitutes research misconduct.

6. Ethical Policies (Compliance with Ethical Standards)

EJMCR upholds the following policies:

• Authorship Integrity
• Plagiarism and Copyright Compliance
• Reporting Standards
• Data Availability
• Conflict of Interest Disclosure
• Patient Confidentiality and Consent
• Ethics Approval for Human and Animal Studies
• Image Integrity
• Research Misconduct

Authors must familiarize themselves with these standards and ensure compliance. See the publisher’s ethical policies for details.

7. Post-Acceptance

Copyright and Open Access: Authors retain copyright but grant the journal publication rights under a CC BY license, allowing reuse with attribution. Learn more.

Offprints: Corresponding authors can order offprints post-publication.

Proofreading and Author Corrections: Authors must review the article proofs carefully and respond to editorial queries within five working days. Corrections requested and completed during the author proof stage, before publication, are made without an additional correction fee.

Post-Publication Corrections: Once an article has been published, any author-requested correction is subject to editorial assessment and an applicable processing fee. This applies to corrections involving author names, affiliations, article text, scientific information, data, tables, figures, captions and other published content or metadata. The processing fee reflects the additional editorial and production work involved, which may include updating article PDF, HTML and XML files, publication metadata and relevant records supplied to external databases. Editorial approval is required, and payment of the applicable processing fee must be completed before an approved author-requested correction is processed. Payment does not guarantee that a proposed correction will be approved.

Notification of Scientific Errors: Authors who discover a substantive error in a published article must promptly inform the Editorial Office and provide the information needed for editorial assessment. The applicable author-requested correction fee does not determine the scientific assessment of the error or prevent the journal from independently considering an expression of concern, retraction or other action required to protect the scholarly record.

Expressions of Concern and Retractions: The journal does not charge authors for issuing an expression of concern or retraction. These are editorial actions taken where appropriate to protect the integrity of the scholarly record and are handled independently of any author-requested correction fee.

Further Information: Post-publication corrections, expressions of concern, retractions and author name changes are governed by EJMCR's Corrections, Retractions and Expressions of Concern policy.

Online First: Accepted articles are published online with a DOI ahead of print, making them citable immediately.

Language Editing: Authors must provide a language editing certificate and plagiarism report if requested by the editor or the reviewers.

Recommended services:

• SofiaFields Editorial Services: https://sofiafields.com/ 
• Peak Medical Editing: https://www.peakmedicalediting.com/ 

 8.  Article Processing Charges

The European Journal of Medical Case Reports (EJMCR) is an open-access journal. Article Processing Charges (APCs), where applicable, are payable only after a manuscript has been accepted for publication. No APC is payable at submission, during initial screening or during peer review. Editorial decisions are independent of payment, and payment does not guarantee acceptance.

APCs support editorial, peer-review, production, and open-access hosting costs, making published work freely available to a global audience. All prices are in euros and exclude applicable tax; tax is additional where required.

APC Applicability:

The standard APC is €220 plus applicable tax for Case Reports, Case Series and Clinical Audits. Letters to the Editor and Image Articles have an APC of €40 plus applicable tax. Short Communications, Technical Notes, Surgical Videos and Illustrative Techniques have an APC of €75 plus applicable tax. These revised prices apply from 15 September 2026.

No APCs are charged for Original Articles or Review Articles.

Discounts and Concessions:

Full APC waivers are not generally offered. The following discounts apply exclusively to article types carrying the standard €220 APC and are not cumulative. No discounts apply to article types carrying APCs of €40 or €75.

• Standard (no discount): €220.
• Students/trainees: 25% discount; final APC €165.
• Authors from developing countries (as per World Bank classification): 35% discount; final APC €143.
• NGOs/charities: 55% discount; final APC €99.
• Eligible authors facing genuine financial hardship: 55% discount; final APC €99.
• Members of the Irish Association of International Doctors (IAID): 55% discount; final APC €99.

Applicable tax is additional where required.

⚠️ Important:

Authors seeking a discount must contact the Editorial Office at contact@ejmcr.com before submitting their manuscript, in accordance with the journal’s existing discount request procedure. The Editorial Office may request appropriate information to verify eligibility. Requests beyond the standard discount categories may be considered in exceptional circumstances.

IAID members are the exception: they do not need to request the discount before submission, and send evidence of membership after acceptance, when the APC is requested.

9. License to Publish

By submitting to EJMCR, authors agree to have their article published under an open-access CC BY license. Authors must either assert copyright ownership of the content and figures in their manuscript or secure necessary permission(s) to publish them under this license.

Author Warranties:

• The article is original, not under consideration elsewhere, and free from libel or plagiarism.
• Permissions for copyrighted material are obtained.
• The publisher reserves the right to withdraw content breaching these warranties.