
$3,000
PRIZE
The Cureus Journal of Medical Science is proud to introduce the Exceptional Responders in Breast Cancer case report publishing competition. We are seeking challenging breast cancer cases where patients exhibited unexpected or exceptional responses (positive or negative) to a therapy or diagnostic approach.
We are particularly interested in the diagnostic and/ or treatment options you considered, your clinical/scientific rationale for selecting the diagnosis, treatment or patient recommendations, and the patient outcome.
For example, did you:
- Use tissue or blood based genomic testing to create a treatment protocol that was not standard of care?
- Use a new blood based cancer detection test to determine if more tests were indicated or if treatment was working?
- Select a new surgical option or used a new surgical technique that reduced side effects?
- Use an imaging technology that changed the patient’s clinical pathway?
Our goal is to share the results with global oncologists and breast cancer patients who might benefit, so that positive experiences can be quickly explored and negative experiences quickly avoided. To encourage dissemination and cross-disciplinary awareness, all published materials will be indexed with PubMed Central and will be open-access.
The winner of this competition will be determined by general acclaim of the medical community using Cureus Scholarly Impact Quotient™ (SIQ™) crowdsourcing technology.
Program administration has been enabled through the financial support of Targeted Medical Educations (TME). Article selection, editorial review, peer review, publication, and competition winner determination are strictly independent of the sponsor.
Peer Review Panel
All article submissions will undergo an independent pre-publication peer review conducted by a world-class team of experts.





Cathy L. Graham
MD | SurgerySurgery, Emory University School of Medicine, Emory St. Joseph's Medical Center

Alan Hollingsworth
MD | SurgeryClinical Director, Screening Programs, Aurora Healthcare US Corp, Danvers, MA, USA



Alison L. Laidley
MD | SurgeryTexas Breast Specialists, Texas Oncology, Medical City Dallas Hospital, Dallas, Texas





Mark Yarchoan
MD | OncologyThe Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Faustina N A. Sackey
PhD | OncologyLoeb Health Research Institute at Ottawa Hospital, University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Ottawa, CAN | The Medical Journal of Therapeutic Africa, The Medical Writing Institute, Haddonfield, NJ, USA
Competition Entries
The entry period is now closed. Competition entries appear below as they are published. Now is your chance to score and discuss these articles. Remember, a $3,000 prize will be awarded to the authors of the highest-scoring article!
Requirements
Competition entry and article submission is entirely free. Eligible entrees include case reports and case series only. Submissions should aim for a 1,000 – 1,200 word target, with a 2,500 word maximum. A limit of five references is strongly encouraged (10 reference maximum). All submitted work must be previously unpublished and should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere.
All articles must be submitted and formatted via the template-driven, self-publishing Cureus platform. Authors are encouraged to include supporting animations and videos within their article submissions. For additional information on publishing with Cureus, please refer to our Author Guide.
Other Stipulations
- All clinical studies must be compliant with applicable regulatory, ethics / IRB, and other rules governing protection of human subjects.
- All non-clinical studies must be compliant with applicable AAUC, AAALAC, and other related regulations.
- This program is not intended to promote or otherwise encourage unapproved, un-cleared use of products or any product for unapproved new use.
- This program in no way promotes or purports to encourage any research that is not in compliance with any local, federal, or other applicable governing laws.
Statement of Independence
- Cureus Publishing Competitions are intended to encourage medical discovery, document clinical experiences – be they positive, negative, or neutral - and foster broader educational outreach through open access publication that is free to both authors and readers.
- As a firewall to ensure objective and credible science, article selection, editorial review, peer review and publication are strictly independent of sponsoring company.
- Winning articles are determined exclusively via peer review panel and community crowdsourced scoring. Neither sponsoring company, nor Cureus, can determine competition outcome.

Awards
A single $3,000 USD Cureus Scientific Excellence™ prize will be awarded to the submitting author of the published article that receives the highest Cureus SIQ score.
Subsequent to a formal editorial and peer review, published articles undergo SIQ scoring - Cureus’ unique crowdsourced, secondary peer-review process. In addition to measuring engagement, SIQ allows the community-at-large to rate the quality of individual articles. Reviewers assign scores from 1 to 10 on criteria including clarity and rationale, clinical importance, study design and methods, data analysis, novelty of conclusions and quality of presentation.
As engagement and scoring are critical to winning, authors are highly encouraged to share their published articles via social media and email.

Key Dates
- Wednesday, March 8, 2017 – Competition begins; articles may now be submitted
- Wednesday, May 24, 2017 – Article submission deadline @ 5:00 pm PT
- Wednesday, July 5, 2017 – Peer & editorial review of all eligible articles concludes
- Wednesday, July 26, 2017 – Competition crowdsourced review (SIQ) concludes @ 5:00 pm PT
- Wednesday, August 2, 2017 – Winning article announced