Management of osteoporosis in South Korea.

Epidemiologic studies have suggested that South Korea is a country with low risk rates of osteoporosis and osteoporotic fractures. Recently, the Korean Nationwide-Databased Osteoporosis Study (KNOS) performed an overall analysis of osteoporosis using data from the Health Insurance Review and Assessments (HIRA) database. The Korean National Health Insurance Program covers almost 100% of the Korean population, and HIRA reviews all information on medication, operation, and discharge diagnoses according to ICD-10 codes. Therefore, all information about osteoporosis and osteoporotic fractures was obtained from this centralized database. This article reviews the KNOS's efforts to characterize the management of osteoporosis in South Korea.