We aimed to review the current data composition of the Korean Tuberculosis and Post-Tuberculosis Cohort, which was constructed by linking the Korean Tuberculosis Surveillance System (KNTSS; established and operated by the Korean Disease Control and Prevention Agency since 2000) and the National Health Information Database (NHID; established by the National Health Insurance Service in 2012). The following data were linked: KNTSS data pertaining to patients diagnosed with tuberculosis between 2011 and 2018, NHID data of patients with a history of tuberculosis and related diseases between 2006 and 2018, and data (obtained from the Statistics Korea database) on causes of death. Data from 300 117 tuberculosis patients (177 206 men and 122 911 women) were linked. The rate of treatment success for new cases was highest in 2015 (86.7%), with a gradual decrease thereafter. The treatment success rate for previously treated cases showed an increasing trend until 2014 (79.0%) and decreased thereafter. In total, 53 906 deaths were confirmed among tuberculosis patients included in the cohort. The Korean Tuberculosis and Post-Tuberculosis Cohort can be used to analyze different measurement variables in an integrated manner depending on the data source. Therefore, these cohort data can be used in future epidemiological studies and research on policy-effect analysis, treatment outcome analysis, and health-related behaviors such as treatment discontinuation.

Purpose Concerns about the risk of osteoporosis and osteoporotic fractures following endocrine therapy have increased with increase in breast cancer survivors. This study aimed to evaluate the incidence of fractures by site between tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitor (AI) users and non-users at premenopausal and postmenopausal ages. Methods This retrospective cohort study used data from the Korea Central Cancer Registry and the Korean National Health Insurance Service. We analyzed 63,021 newly diagnosed breast cancer patients between 2008 and 2016. The risk of fractures was analyzed according to post-surgical endocrine therapy using the multivariable Cox proportional hazard model. Results Herein, 69.1% of the patients received endocrine therapy. The incidence rates of osteoporotic fractures per 1,000 person-years were 7.4 overall, 3.5 in those under 50, and 12.6 in those over 50. After adjusting for confounders, the tamoxifen group showed protection against any fractures in patients over 50 (HR = 0.75, 95% CI 0.62–0.89, p < 0.001) but not in those under 50. The AI ​​group was associated with a significant increase in fractures in those under 50 (HR = 1.54, 95% CI 1.07–2.93, p = 0.019) but not in those over 50. Conclusion Among breast cancer patients aged over 50 years, AI use was not associated with increased risk of compared to non-users. Tamoxifen use was linked to reduced risk of fracture, but not in patients under 50. Considering the relatively young age of breast cancer diagnosis in Korea, long-term follow-up studies are warranted. Summary After adjusting for confounders including age, among breast cancer patients aged over 50 years, AI use was not associated with increased risk of fracture compared to non-users. Tamoxifen use was linked to reduced risk of fracture, but not in patients under 50.

This study evaluated the effect of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) on osteoporotic fractures (OF) and its prognostic effect on overall survival in patients with localized or regional prostate cancer (PC) using the Korean National Insurance Dataset. A total of 8883 pairs of 1:1 propensity-score-matched patients with localized or regional PC were retrospectively enrolled between 2007 and 2016. All patients underwent at least 1 year of follow-up to evaluate therapeutic outcomes. Multivariate analysis was performed to determine the prognostic effect of ADT on OF. During a mean follow-up of 47.7 months, 977 (3.43%) patients developed OF, and the incidences of hip, spine, and wrist fractures were significantly different between ADT and non-ADT groups (p < 0.05). The ADT group had a significantly higher incidence of OF (hazard ratio 2.055, 95% confidence interval 1.747–2.417) than the non-ADT group (p < 0.05), and the incidence of spine/hip/wrist OF was significantly higher in the ADT group regardless of the PC stage (p < 0.05). Multivariate analysis failed to show any significant difference in overall survival between the two groups (p > 0.05). ADT resulted in a significantly higher incidence of OF among patients with localized and regional PC, but the overall survival did not differ between ADT and non-ADT groups.

Park KT, et al. J Korean Med Sci. 2025 Sep;40(45):e292. https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2025.40.e292

Kim HS, et al. J Korean Med Assoc. 2016 Jul;59(7):536-546. http://dx.doi.org/10.5124/jkma.2016.59.7.536