Comparison of diagnosis-based risk adjustment methods for episode-based costs to apply in efficiency measurement.

Background: The recent rising health spending intrigued efficiency and cost-based performance measures. However, mortality risk adjustment methods are still under consideration in cost estimation, though methods specific to cost estimate have been developed. Therefore, we aimed to compare the performance of diagnosis-based risk adjustment methods based on the episode-based cost to utilize in efficiency measurement.

Citation Activity of in 2011-2020: Reflection on the Most and Least Cited Items.

Background: The () is a weekly periodical published by the Korean Academy of Medical Sciences. invites global researchers to submit articles covering various areas in general medicine. The present article's aim was to analyze citations of articles in 2011-2020 for updating editorial policies.

Identifying Adverse Events Using International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision Y Codes in Korea: A Cross-sectional Study.

Objectives: The use of administrative data is an affordable alternative to conducting a difficult large-scale medical-record review to estimate the scale of adverse events. We identified adverse events from 2002 to 2013 on the national level in Korea, using International Classification of Diseases, tenth revision (ICD-10) Y codes.

Methods: We used data from the National Health Insurance Service-National Sample Cohort (NHIS-NSC).

ROC Estimation from Clustered Data with an Application to Liver Cancer Data.

In this article, we propose a regression model to compare the performances of different diagnostic methods having clustered ordinal test outcomes. The proposed model treats ordinal test outcomes (an ordinal categorical variable) as grouped-survival time data and uses random effects to explain correlation among outcomes from the same cluster. To compare different diagnostic methods, we introduce a set of covariates indicating diagnostic methods and compare their coefficients.

Inhalation Lung Injury Associated with Humidifier Disinfectants in Adults.

We recently established a novel disease entity presented as progressive respiratory failure associated with the inhalation of humidifier disinfectants. In April 2011, we encountered a series of peripartum patients with complaints of respiratory distress of unknown etiology, which was an uncommon phenomenon. Accordingly, we created a multidisciplinary team comprising intensivists, radiologists, pathologists, epidemiologists, and the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).

Epidemiologic research on lung damage caused by humidifier disinfectants.

In April 2011 a tertiary hospital located in Seoul, Korea reported several cases of severe respiratory distress of unknown origin in young adults. To find the route of transmission, causative agent and patient risk factors of the outbreak, an investigation of the epidemic was initiated. A hospital based case-control study was conducted to indicate that humidifier detergent use was the cause of the outbreak.

Humidifier Disinfectants Are a Cause of Lung Injury among Adults in South Korea: A Community-Based Case-Control Study.

Backgrounds: An outbreak of lung injury among South Korean adults was examined in a hospital-based case-control study, and the suspected cause was exposure to humidifier disinfectant (HD). However, a case-control study with community-dwelling controls was needed to validate the previous study's findings, and to confirm the exposure-response relationship between HD and lung injury.

Methods: Each case of lung injury was matched with four community-dwelling controls, according to age (±3 years), sex, residence, and history of childbirth since 2006 (for women).

Voice Changes in Elderly Adults: Prevalence and the Effect of Social, Behavioral, and Health Status on Voice Quality.

Objectives: To estimate the prevalence of dysphonia and the effect of several risk factors on vocal quality in a representative population of older adults.

Design: Cross-sectional.

Setting: Korea.

Vegetable intake, but not fruit intake, is associated with a reduction in the risk of cancer incidence and mortality in middle-aged Korean men.

Background: Few prospective studies have examined the preventive role of fruit and vegetable intakes against cancer in Asian populations.

Objective: This prospective study evaluated the associations between total fruit intake, total vegetable intake, and total fruit and vegetable intake and total cancer incidence and mortality.

Methods: This prospective cohort study included 14,198 men 40-59 y of age enrolled in the Seoul Male Cohort Study from 1991 to 1993.

Prevalence of coronary atherosclerosis in an Asian population: findings from coronary computed tomographic angiography.

We sought to estimate the prevalence of coronary atherosclerosis by coronary computed tomographic angiography (CCTA) and to identify risk factors attributable to the development of coronary atherosclerosis in an asymptomatic Asian population. We analyzed 6,311 consecutive asymptomatic individuals aged 40 and older with no prior history of coronary artery disease (CAD) who voluntarily underwent CCTA evaluation as part of a general health examination. The mean age of study participants was 54.

A De-identification method for bilingual clinical texts of various note types.

De-identification of personal health information is essential in order not to require written patient informed consent. Previous de-identification methods were proposed using natural language processing technology in order to remove the identifiers in clinical narrative text, although these methods only focused on narrative text written in English. In this study, we propose a regular expression-based de-identification method used to address bilingual clinical records written in Korean and English.

Model for assessing cardiovascular risk in a Korean population.

Background: A model for predicting cardiovascular disease in Asian populations is limited.

Methods And Results: In total, 57 393 consecutive asymptomatic Korean individuals aged 30 to 80 years without a prior history of cardiovascular disease who underwent a general health examination were enrolled. Subjects were randomly classified into the train (n=45 914) and validation (n=11 479) cohorts.

Prophylactic effect of erythropoietin injection to prevent acute mountain sickness: an open-label randomized controlled trial.

This study was performed to evaluate whether increasing hemoglobin before ascent by prophylactic erythropoietin injections prevents acute mountain sickness (AMS). This open-label, randomized, controlled trial involved 39 healthy volunteers with hemoglobin ≤ 15.5 g/dL who were divided randomly into erythropoietin (n=20) and control (n=19) groups.

A cluster of lung injury cases associated with home humidifier use: an epidemiological investigation.

Background: In April 2011 a tertiary hospital in Seoul, Korea reported several cases of severe respiratory distress of unknown origin in young adults.

Methods: To find the route of transmission, causative agent and patient risk factors of the outbreak, an investigation of the epidemic was initiated. Clinicopathological conferences led to the suspicion that the cases related to an inhalation injury.

A cluster of lung injury associated with home humidifier use: clinical, radiological and pathological description of a new syndrome.

Background: Over a few months in the spring of 2011, a cluster of patients with severe respiratory distress were admitted to our intensive care unit (ICU). Household clustering was also observed. Extensive laboratory investigations failed to detect an infectious cause.

Cardiovascular health metrics and all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality among middle-aged men in Korea: the Seoul male cohort study.

Objectives: This study estimated the association of cardiovascular health behaviors with the risk of all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality in middle-aged men in Korea.

Methods: In total, 12 538 men aged 40 to 59 years were enrolled in 1993 and followed up through 2011. Cardiovascular health metrics defined the following lifestyle behaviors proposed by the American Heart Association: smoking, physical activity, body mass index, diet habit score, total cholesterol, blood pressure, and fasting blood glucose.

Humidifier disinfectant-associated children's interstitial lung disease.

Rationale: Beginning in 2006, epidemics of a fatal lung injury of unknown cause in children were observed in Korea every spring. A recent study demonstrated that this type of children's interstitial lung disease (chILD) is associated with humidifier disinfectant use.

Objectives: To determine the clinical characteristics of this type of chILD and to assess whether the nationwide suspension of humidifier disinfectant sales in the autumn of 2011 affected its incidence.

Cigarette smoking and prostate cancer risk: negative results of the Seoul Male Cancer Cohort Study.

We evaluated cigarette smoking as a risk factor for prostate cancer in a prospective, population-based cohort study. The subjects were 14,450 males among the participants in the Seoul Male Cancer Cohort Study who had at least 1-year follow-up. They were followed up between 1993 and 2008.

Pulmonary tuberculosis and lung cancer risk in current smokers: the Seoul Male Cancer Cohort Study.

Authors evaluated pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) history as a risk factor for lung cancer in current male smokers in a prospective, population-based cohort study. The subjects were the 7,009 males among the participants in the Seoul Male Cancer Cohort Study for whom there was full information on PTB history and smoking habits. With a 16-yr follow-up, 93 cases of lung cancer occurred over the 99,965 person-years of the study.

Inhalation toxicity of humidifier disinfectants as a risk factor of children's interstitial lung disease in Korea: a case-control study.

Background: The occurrence of numerous cases of interstitial lung disease in children (chILD) every spring in Korea starting in 2006 raised suspicion about a causal relationship with the use of humidifier disinfectants (HDs). The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between HD use and the risk of chILD.

Methods: This retrospective, 1∶3 matched case-control study consisted of 16 cases of chILD that had developed between 2010 and 2011.

Lung cancer incidence by smoking status in Korean men: 16-years of observations in the Seoul Male Cancer Cohort study.

The relative risk (RR) of smoking and mortality of lung cancer in British doctors was previously reported to have increased throughout a 40-yr period. Here, we evaluated this RR based on the incidence of lung cancer in Korean men using a longer follow-up period. We compared our data to the RR reported in a study using a 10-yr follow-up period; the subjects and methods were identical to those of the previous paper with the exception of the follow-up period, which ended on December 31, 2008.

Discrepancy between mitral valve areas measured by two-dimensional planimetry and three-dimensional transoesophageal echocardiography in patients with mitral stenosis.

Objective: To compare mitral valve area (MVA) measurements obtained by 2D transthoracic planimetry and 3D transoesophageal echocardiography (TOE) in patients with mitral stenosis (MS), and to determine the causes of discrepancies between the two techniques.

Design: Reliability and agreement study.

Setting: Tertiary referral centre.

Psychometric Properties of the Korean Version of the Overactive Bladder Questionnaire (OAB-q) in a Korean Population.

Purpose: Psychometric properties of the overactive bladder questionnaire (OAB-q) were recently examined. However, since the cross-cultural adaptation of a non-English version of the OAB-q has never been demonstrated, we evaluated the psychometric properties of a Korean version of the OAB-q in a Korean population with OAB.

Methods: A prospective cohort study involving 116 women with 58 OAB and 58 control subjects was performed and convergent validity was assessed.

Development and validation of comorbidity index in South Korea.

Objective: This study aims to develop and validate a new comorbidity index using data from hospitalized patients in South Korea.

Study Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Setting: Hospital inpatients.

Use of mean spot urine sodium concentrations to estimate daily sodium intake in patients with chronic kidney disease.

Objective: Sodium intake is an important issue for patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). The two most widely used methods to measure sodium are 24-h urinary sodium excretion (24HUNa), which can be difficult to perform routinely, and sodium intake by dietary recall, which can be inaccurate. This study evaluated use of the mean value of three spot urinary sodium (UNa) concentrations to estimate daily sodium intake in patients with CKD.