J Korean Surg Soc.  2011 Feb;80(2):125-130. 10.4174/jkss.2011.80.2.125.

Investigation of Current Trend of AAA Treatment in Korea

• Park YJ
• Kim N
• Kim YW

• KMID: 2117120
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4174/jkss.2011.80.2.125

Abstract

PURPOSE
To know the current trend of the annual number of AAA patients in Korea and treatment modality, we attempted to investigate the numbers of patients diagnosed with AAA and the number of patients who underwent open or endovascular treatment of AAA in Korea during the last 6 years.
METHODS
To investigate the number of AAA patients, we searched for ruptured AAA and AAA without description of rupture disease from the database of Health Insurance Reimbursement Association (HIRA) by searching the disease code of HIRA I71.3 (ruptured AAA) and I71.4 (AAA without description of rupture) during the period between 2003 and 2009. To investigate the number of patients who underwent treatment for AAA, we searched for code O 2036, O 2034, O 0223, O 0224 (open surgical repair) and M 6612 (endovascular aneurysm repair, EVAR). To discern the number of AAA-related deaths in Korea during the same period, we depended on the database of the Statistics Korea.
RESULTS
We found that the number of AAA patients and treatment of AAA were rapidly increasing recently after the inception of the reimbursement for EVAR by the HIRA. But the number of AAA-related deaths did not significantly change during the same period in Korea.
CONCLUSION
After observing that the number of patients with AAA and its treatment rapidly increased while the number of AAA-related death did not increase, we can assume that it is the result of increase of patients detection rather than that of prevalence of AAA and also think that many AAA patients are still under-detected in Korea. To cope with the increasing number of AAA patients and to facilitate detection of hidden AAA patients, we would like to propose a nationwide screening program of AAA for a selected group of the population.

Keyword

Abdominal aortic aneurysm; Endovascular aneurysm repair; Prevalence; Screening

MeSH Terms

Aneurysm
Aortic Aneurysm, Abdominal
Humans
Insurance, Health, Reimbursement
Korea
Mass Screening
Phosphatidylethanolamines
Prevalence
Rupture
Phosphatidylethanolamines

Figure

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  Fig. 1 Trend of annual number of AAA (ruptured vs. non-ruptured) patients and AAA-related death.

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  Fig. 2 Annual gender distribution in AAA patients.

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  Fig. 3 Annual age distribution in AAA patients.

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  Fig. 4 Trend of AAA treatment (open repair vs. EVAR).

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  Fig. 5 Trend of open repair and EVAR according to department. Solid bar = open repair; Blank bar = EVAR.

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  Fig. 6 Trend of AAA treatment (open repair vs. EVAR) in Japan.

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