To evaluate, retrospectively, the quality of previously published case reports in endodontics according to the PRICE 2020 guidelines.
An electronic literature search was conducted in PubMed database on March 12, 2020, to identify case reports published during the last five years in the International Endodontic Journal and the Journal of Endodontics. For each of the included case reports, information regarding fulfillment of each of the items of the PRICE 2020 guidelines was extracted as ‘0’ (not present in the manuscript), ‘1’ (present in the manuscript) and ‘NA’ (not applicable) and translated into a score (percentage of items fulfilled). Additionally, the percentage of papers fulfilling each item was calculated.
Overall, 70 endodontic case reports were identified. The scores of the papers ranged between 56.41-79.55%, with a mean score of 70.26±4.36% (SD). The percentage of papers fulfilling each item of the applicable PRICE 2020 items ranged widely, between 0-100%. The median of the percentage of all the items (n = 47) was 97.01%; mean 73.33±36.28% (SD). The lowest scores were recorded for specific items in the following domains: ‘Case Report Information’-Items 6c, 6g-i, ‘Patient Perspective’-Item 8a and ‘Quality of Images’-Items 12c-d.
Several areas with low reporting rates were identified in case reports published over the last 5 years in endodontics. Authors should be encouraged to follow the PRICE 2020 guidelines in order to increase the quality and improve reproducibility of their case reports.

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