title: The Number of Patients and Therapeutic Profile of Spinal Stenosis Using Health Insurance Claims in Japan.
abstract: METHODS
  Population-based retrospective descriptive study.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To describe the number and therapeutic profile of patients with spinal stenosis at a large-scale community level using health insurance claims data.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  A few reports have documented the prevalence of spinal stenosis, and no report has described the therapeutic profile for spinal stenosis in a population base.
  
  
  METHODS
  We studied the claims data of National Health Insurance and Late-stage Elderly Health Insurance in a prefecture in Japan from April 2010 to March 2011. We considered patients to have spinal stenosis if their claims included at least one diagnosis coded as spinal stenosis for at least 1 month during the study period. Disease criteria were based on the International Classification of Diseases, 10th version. We then described the number and the therapeutic profile of the patients with spinal stenosis by age and sex.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of 699,723 beneficiaries, 52,889 patients with spinal stenosis were identified. The number of patients with spinal stenosis per 1000 beneficiaries was 76, and those for the subgroups of age ≥ 65 years, ≥ 75 years, and ≥ 85 years were 128, 155, and 152, respectively. The number of patients per 1000 beneficiaries showed unimodal distribution, and the peak for males was 191 between the ages 95 to 99 years and that for females was 160 between the ages 80 to 84 years. Analgesics, prostaglandin E1, or both were prescribed to 40%, 2%, or 20% of patients with spinal stenosis, respectively. Physical therapy, nerve blocks, and surgery were done for 19%, 8%, and 0.4% of the patients, respectively. Approximately, 33% of patients did not receive any treatment.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There were a large number of patients with spinal stenosis in elderly people. Most of them received nonsurgical treatments. Health insurance claims data could be a useful source of surveillance for such common diseases as spinal stenosis.
  
  
  METHODS
  4.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.|Division of Sport Medicine, Faculty of Sport Education, Kokushikan University, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Izumi
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kuboyama
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Satoshi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Toyokawa
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tomio
authors.affiliation: Department of Global Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan.
authors.forename: Haruhiko
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Inada
authors.affiliation: Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Fukuoka University, Fukuoka, Japan.
authors.forename: Shinichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tanihara
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Yasuki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kobayashi
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D059019:Clinical Coding / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007345:Insurance Claim Review; D007348:Insurance, Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013130:Spinal Stenosis / Q000601:surgery*; D055815:Young Adult