Biomedical images"”diagnostic images in clinical medicine and analytical images in the basic sciences"”differ from other figures in scientific publications because they do not summarize or organize data, they are the data. For this reason alone, they need to be documented well. In addition, because interpretations of these images can vary widely (sometimes notoriously so), accurate and complete documentation should be provided to support each specific interpretation. If key information is missing, readers will create their own interpretation, which may be incomplete, inaccurate, or simply wrong.
However, there appear to be no comprehensive, widely available guidelines for documenting or reporting these images. Although the procedures for acquiring and interpreting some of these images are standardized and can be referenced, and some reporting conventions have been proposed by individual journals, the information that should accompany them in a scientific article remains to be specified.
I am interested in creating reporting guidelines for documenting biomedical images in scientific publications. If you have a similar interest, let me know.
Tom
