Matched case report

A matched case report is a structured clinical case write-up in which the index patient is compared against one or more systematically selected matched comparators — typically patients with similar demographics, comorbidities, or clinical settings who did not experience the same unusual outcome. The matched comparator contextualises the index case, strengthening causal inference beyond what a conventional single case report can support, and is used particularly in pharmacovigilance, rare-disease documentation, and novel-intervention reporting.