LAUSR

In April 2011, the Editorial board of the European Journal of Anaesthesiology decided to offer clinicians the opportunity of publishing case reports on the anaesthetic management of patients with rare diseases as Letters to the Editor. This special series was called ‘Anaesthesia and orphan disease’. It was launched at the same time as the Germany-driven OrphanAnaesthesia project. This decision was made at the time when all the major journals, including the European Journal of Anaesthesiology, had decided to reduce or even cease the publication of case reports. This decision was taken because the scientific value of case reports varies greatly and also because case reports are rarely quoted. This latter fact has a negative effect on the journal impact factor. On the other hand, case reports can convey useful clinical messages and, after all, we all like reading short clinical stories because they present us with challenging situations. Consequently, several journals have reintroduced some types of case reports (e.g. images sections), and even new journals have been created, for example, A&A Case Reports.