The Medscape Reference Cases are a series of real patient presentations distributed via email to healthcare practitioners around the world. Our mission is to educate health care providers regarding the clinical presentation, diagnosis, management, and complications of a wide range of disorders in all areas of medicine.

Examples of a Case:

Mysterious Bruising, Weakness, Back Pain, and Gum Bleeds

Each Case should include the following:

A clinical patient presentation with a broad appeal to a general clinical audience that falls into one or more of these categories:

• A commonly encountered medical condition (eg, cholecystitis, appendicitis, incarcerated hernia)
• A relatively less common, but "cannot miss" diagnosis associated with a common presentation (eg, aortic dissection for a patient with chest pain; epiploic appendagitis in a patient with right lower quadrant pain)
• An interesting medical condition (eg, herpes zoster oticus, pneumatosis intestinalis)
• A regional disease or condition (eg, dracunculiasis, coccidioidomycosis)

Associated multimedia resources with sufficient resolution:

• Digitized imaging studies, such as a plain radiographs, ultrasound images, or a CT scan image
• Digital photographs of physical examination findings
• Digitized or scanned electrocardiograms
• Video clips of ultrasound examinations or physical examination findings
• Digitized histopathology slides

A discussion of the disease, syndrome, or condition, including:

• A general description of how the diagnosis was made
• Epidemiology of the condition
• Typical and atypical clinical presentations
• Useful diagnostic studies
• The differential diagnosis
• Complications associated with the condition
• Typical and atypical treatment
• Clinical course of the patient presented in the case

Possible responses within 4 weeks of submission

• Accepted without revisions
• Accepted with revisions
• If your case receives an "accepted with revisions" status, you will be expected to make the necessary changes as suggested by the medical editor of the case. Generally, your case will be published within a 2- to 3-month time frame, but the editors reserve the right to suspend the case for an indefinite period.
• Not Accepted
• If your case is initially not accepted, you may resubmit if you modify your case to more closely comply with the guidelines or address specific issues with the case.

The decision to suspend a case may be made for a number of reasons, such as if another case on a similar topic was recently published or if there are difficulties or delays in obtaining copyright clearances or in processing the multimedia used in the case.

Submit cases or questions

Please send your note of interest, details of your case submission, or questions to case@webmd.net