Medical Cost
Medical expenses in our study are reported from the insurer’s perspective and are presented as average costs (mean values). To eliminate the extreme values, we applied a 2% trimmed mean and excluded the upper and lower 1% values. The cost includes all medical treatment expenses for 5 years after the initial diagnosis. For costs between the years 2003 to 2014, we applied an adjustment in the unit price per score to reflect the actual value of the cost in the year 2015. The medical costs were corrected by multiplying the unit price by the following adjustment rates: 1.30 (2003), 1.26 (2004), 1.23 (2005), 1.19 (2006), 1.15 (2007), 1.13 (2008), 1.10 (2009), 1.09 (2010), 1.08 (2011), 1.06 (2012), 1.04 (2013), and 1.02 (2014). In this study, all amounts are presented in KRW [1 USD is equivalent to 1,200 KRW in average].