Documenting Clinical and Laboratory Images in Publications: The CLIP Principles

Analytical images in the laboratory sciences and diagnostic images in clinical medicine differ from other figures in scientific publications because they do not simply present, organize, or summarize information, they are the information. This chapter presents some general principles for documenting images and some preliminary guidelines for documenting specific types of images. The guiding principle of reporting analytical and diagnostic images is to provide the information that readers need to assess the accuracy, completeness, validity, and credibility of the stated interpretation and implications of the image. This guiding principle is more easily followed by always considering the six components of documentation. The elements in the components are intended to be prompts for consideration rather than mandatory reporting requirements. Information included in the published article to meet these guidelines may be placed in the text, under headings such as “Examination Technique”, “Imaging Technique”, or “Image Analysis”, or in figure captions.