Dual Publication: Spinal Cord Injury, Vertebral Artery Dissection, and Cerebellar Strokes After Chiropractic Manipulation

The Editors of Neurology® and Internal and Emergency Medicine issue a notice of publication of 2 reports of a single patient written by 2 different author groups.

Macêdo MB, Shinjo SK, Domiciano DS. Breaking the Diagnosis: Ankylosing Spondylitis Evidenced by Cervical Fracture following Spine Manipulation. Intern Emerg Med 2021. DOI: 10.1007/s11739-021-02829-2.

Ramos GB, Martins RR, Souza JCC, Falcão FCSEB, Lopes CCB, Andrade ALG, Silva GD. Spinal Cord Injury, Vertebral Artery Dissection, and Cerebellar Strokes after Chiropractic Manipulation. Neurology 2021. DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000013078.

The first article was published in Internal and Emergency Medicine. The journal received it on July 20, 2021, accepted it on August 10, 2021, and published it online on August 20, 2021. The second article was published in Neurology. It was received on July 16, 2021, accepted on November 4, 2021, and published online on November 18, 2021. The 2 case reports were based on the same patient and shared a common image.

Both case reports were written by authors from the Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de São Paulo. The authors of the article published in Internal and Emergency Medicine were affiliated with the Department of Rheumatology, and the authors of the Neurology article were affiliated with the Department of Neurology.

The authors of both articles were contacted and asked for an explanation for the dual publication. Both teams of authors explained that they cared for the patient during the hospital admission and that they were unaware of the submission by the other team. The focus of the articles is different: one focused on bone injury and emergency care and the other on the neurologic aspects of the case. Both author groups apologize for the duplicate submissions.

A reader first notified Neurology that the case had been published in the 2 journals and a brief report was submitted to Neurology's Disputes & Debates section on November 29, 2021.¹