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].