%X Are case reports at all relevant and useful? A case report of an unusual case of mesothelioma prompts a discussion and concludes that they do have a role but that their observations and conclusions need to be treated with care. %V 9 %A T Treasure %A F Macbeth %J J Cardiothorac Surg %N 1 %D 2014 %O © 2014 Treasure and Macbeth; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. %T An exception that proves the rule: recurrence free survival five years after extrapleural pneumonectomy for malignant pleural mesothelioma. %L discovery1457053