Characteristics of Patients Diagnosed with Osteoporosis in South Korea: Results from the National Claim Registry.
BACKGROUND
Although osteoporosis is increasing medical issue in the elderly population, attempts to analyze the characteristics of patients diagnosed with osteoporosis are rare in South Korea. We investigated the characteristics of patients diagnosed with osteoporosis using Korea's National Health Insurance claims data, which includes almost Korean population.


METHODS
We evaluated the patients who were diagnosed and treated with osteoporosis in medical institute in South Korea, using the national database by the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service (HIRA). We evaluated the characteristic of patients and state of medical service utilization in 2010.


RESULTS
The number of patients who were diagnosed with osteoporosis were 1,733,685, and almost of them (91.1%) were females. Fourteen point three percent of the patients had experienced osteoporosis-related fracture. The most commonly used type of institute and department was hospital and orthopedic surgery.


CONCLUSIONS
Considering increasing age population, basic information including characteristic of patients and current state of medical service utilization could be useful to perform appropriate management and treatment for osteoporosis patients in South Korea, using the National Health Insurance claims data.
Department of Internal Medicine, Cheil General Hospital & Women's Healthcare Center, Dankook University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
Hyun Koo
HK
Yoon
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, Korea.
Young-Kyun
YK
Lee
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Chung-Ang University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
Yong-Chan
YC
Ha
National health programs; Osteoporosis; Osteoporotic fractures; Republic of Korea