Endocrine Abstracts

Background: The National Health Insurance Service of South Korea is considered to be one of the most effective systems in the world with high accessibility to health care for all Koreans including foreign residents in the country as many as 50 M people. The accumulative information on the behaviors and the statistics of healthcare use based on the National Health Insurance Sharing Service Database has become important for medical research as a nationwide surveillance.

Methods: We, thereafter, performed analysis of the changes in the incidence and prevalence of hypoparathyroidism which is the common complication of thyroid surgery with the National Health Insurance Sharing Service Database in South Korea. From 2008 to 2015, we selected the postoperative hypoparathyroidism group who were prescribed with vitamin D over 6 months after the thyroid surgery with diagnosis of thyroid cancer.

Results: The incidence of postoperative hypoparathyroidism increased consistently from 2008 to 2013 and decreased in 2015. The number of cases of thyroid surgery reached its peak in 2012 and decreased after then, showing similar tendency. This trend is observed similarly with the incidence of thyroid cancer showing consistent increase from 2008 to 2012, and decrease in 2015. Percentage of hypoparathyroidism resulting from total thyroidectomy except slight increase in 2014 seems to be consistent, indicating at least surgical skill fluctuation.

Conclusion: Thereafter, the incidence of hypoparathyroidism, which is a common complication of thyroid surgery, has decreased with the effect of significant health care improvement.