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Clinical science
Incidence and prevalence of uveitis in South Korea: a nationwide cohort study
  1. Tyler Hyungtaek Rim1,
  2. Sung Soo Kim1,2,3,
  3. Don-Il Ham4,
  4. Seung-Young Yu5,
  5. Eun Jee Chung6,
  6. Sung Chul Lee1
  7. on behalf of the Korean Uveitis Society
  1. 1 Department of Ophthalmology, Severance Hospital, Institute of Vision Research, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea
  2. 2 Yonsei Healthcare Big Data Based Knowledge Integration System Research Center, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea
  3. 3 Institute of Convergence Science, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea
  4. 4 Department of Ophthalmology, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea
  5. 5 Department of Ophthalmology, Kyung Hee University School of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea
  6. 6 Department of Ophthalmology, National Health Insurance Service Ilsan Hospital, Goyang, South Korea
  1. Correspondence to Dr Sung Chul Lee, Department of Ophthalmology, Severance Hospital, Institute of Vision Research, Yonsei University College of Medicine, 50 Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 120-752, South Korea; sunglee{at}yuhs.ac

Abstract

Aim To evaluate the incidence and prevalence of uveitis and associated risk factors in South Korea.

Methods For this retrospective national cohort study, approximately 1 000 000 Korean residents were randomly selected from the Korean National Health Insurance Service database. Uveitis was defined according to the Korean Classification of Diseases. The uveitis incidence and prevalence were calculated. Sociodemographic factors and comorbidities associated with uveitis were evaluated via Cox proportional regression models.

Results A total of 1 094 440 subjects were evaluated over 7 051 346 person-years (mean follow-up: 6.44 years). Overall, 7447 newly developed uveitis cases were identified during the period of 2007–2013; the average incidence of uveitis was 10.6 per 10 000 person-years (95% CI 10.3 to 10.8). The average incidences of anterior and non-anterior uveitis were 9.0 and 1.5 per 10 000 person-years, respectively. The prevalence rates of uveitis, anterior uveitis and non-anterior uveitis were 17.3, 15.0 and 2.3 per 10 000 persons, respectively, during the period of 2007–2013. Increasing age, male sex, residing in a relatively rural area and high income were associated with uveitis, along with Behçet’s disease, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, systemic lupus erythematous, ulcerative colitis and tuberculosis.

Conclusions The overall incidence of uveitis in Korea was similar to those reported in Taiwan and the USA. Despite a potentially inaccurate disease definition, claims data may be useful for monitoring the substantial uveitis burden in South Korea.

  • uveitis: anterior uveitis
  • south korea
  • incidence
  • prevalence

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bjophthalmol-2016-309829

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors Research design: THR, SSK, D-IH, S-YY, EJC and SCL.

      Data acquisition and/or research execution: THR, SSK, D-IH, S-YY, EJC and SCL.

      Data analysis and/or interpretation: THR, SSK, D-IH, S-YY, EJC and SCL.

      Manuscript preparation: THR.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent This study adhered to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the institutional review board of the NHIS Ilsan Hospital, which waived the requirement for written informed consent.

    • Ethics approval By the institutional review board of the NHIS Ilsan Hospital.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement This study incorporated data from the National Health Insurance Service National Sample Cohort 2002-2013, which were released by the Korean National Health Insurance Service in response to the researchers' request.