The Annual Trends between Neurointerventional and Neurosurgical Procedures in Korea: Analysis using HIRA Data from 2010 to 2016

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the annual trend for several neurosurgical and neurointerventional procedures (NIPs) in Korea between 2010 and 2016 by using medical claim data. MATERIALS AND METHODS: All data during the recent 7 years were collected from Bigdata Hub provided by the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service (HIRA). Using several codes for medical practice, we estimated the number of in-patients for each practice and calculated the annual variation of each procedure. These data were compared between each NIP versus the equivalent surgical procedure and analyzed according to the geographic distribution and the hospital grade. RESULTS: During the past 7 years, the average growth rate of all stroke in-patients is 2.05%, and the number of in-patients with ischemic stroke is 5.2 times higher than those with hemorrhagic stroke. While clipping accounted for 53.7% (5,209/9,700) of total patients in 2010, 61.9% of patients (9,146/14,781) are currently undergoing coiling procedure in 2016. MT for acute ischemic stroke has grown annually by an average of 35.9% during the past 3 years. Stenting and angioplasty for carotid artery and intracranial artery showed relatively stable growth during the past 7 years. Especially, carotid artery stenting is rapidly increasing in secondary general hospitals, where more than 50% of these procedures were performed after 2014. CONCLUSION: In this study, we found that most of NIPs has increased annually over the past 7 years and that NIPs are rapidly replacing conventional surgical maneuvers in Korea.