ABSTRACT
This study estimated the number of Korean adults aged 50 years or more with osteoarthritis (OA) based on the data from fifth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (K-NHANES). We analyzed the knee X-ray finding and symptom questionnaire data obtained from the fifth K-NHANES conducted in 2010. The number of Korean adults aged 50 years or more with radiographic OA (those who had grade II or higher Kellgren-Lawrence score for OA) and symptomatic OA (those who had grade II or higher Kellgren-Lawrence score for OA and knee pain) were estimated using surveyfreq procedure of the SAS statistical package. It was estimated that there were 5,294,073 (proportion, 37.8%; 95% confidence interval, 4,739,995 to 5,848,150) patients with radiographic OA and 2,003,471 (proportion, 14.3%; 95% confidence interval, 1,693,239 to 2,313,703) patients with symptomatic OA among 14,010,367 Korean adults aged 50 years or more in 2010. This study has a limitation that symptomatic OA based on only the self report of symptom questionnaire. So, it is important that the physician do a physical examination to diagnose OA. Also, further efforts to investigate large-scale prospective studies are needed.