Development of Clinical Data Mart of HMG-CoA Reductase Inhibitor for Varied Clinical Research

BACKGROUND: The increasing use of electronic medical record (EMR) systems for documenting clinical medical data has led to EMR data being increasingly accessed for clinical trials. In this study, a database of patients who were prescribed statins for the first time was developed using EMR data. A clinical data mart (CDM) was developed for cohort study researchers. METHODS: Seoul St. Mary's Hospital implemented a clinical data warehouse (CDW) of data for ~2.8 million patients, 47 million prescription events, and laboratory results for 150 million cases. We developed a research database from a subset of the data on the basis of a study protocol. Data for patients who were prescribed a statin for the first time (between the period from January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2015), including personal data, laboratory data, diagnoses, and medications, were extracted. RESULTS: We extracted initial clinical data of statin from a CDW that was established to support clinical studies; the data was refined through a data quality management process. Data for 21,368 patients who were prescribed statins for the first time were extracted. We extracted data every 3 months for a period of 1 year. A total of 17 different statins were extracted. It was found that statins were first prescribed by the endocrinology department in most cases (69%, 14,865/21,368). CONCLUSION: Study researchers can use our CDM for statins. Our EMR data for statins is useful for investigating the effectiveness of treatments and exploring new information on statins. Using EMR is advantageous for compiling an adequate study cohort in a short period.

Risks of Lung Cancer due to Radon Exposure among the Regions of Korea

Radon is likely the second most common cause of lung cancer after smoking. We estimated the lung cancer risk due to radon using common risk models. Based on national radon survey data, we estimated the population-attributable fraction (PAF) and the number of lung cancer deaths attributable to radon. The exposure-age duration (EAD) and exposure-age concentration (EAC) models were used. The regional average indoor radon concentration was 37.5 95 Bq/m3. The PAF for lung cancer was 8.3% (European Pooling Study model), 13.5% in males and 20.4% in females by EAD model, and 19.5% in males and 28.2% in females by EAC model. Due to differences in smoking by gender, the PAF of radon-induced lung cancer deaths was higher in females. In the Republic of Korea, the risk of radon is not widely recognized. Thus, information about radon health risks is important and efforts are needed to decrease the associated health problems.

Negative Association between Obesity Index and Thyroid Hormones in Euthyroid Children

BACKGROUND: The number of obese people is increasing worldwide; in particular, childhood obesity is becoming a major problem. Obesity elevates the risk of various endocrine-metabolic diseases, and it was recently reported that there was a correlation between obesity and thyroid hormone level. The present study aimed to investigate the correlation between the obesity index and thyroid hormone level in healthy children with normal thyroid function. METHODS: The study subjects included children 7-12 years of age with normal thyroid function who participated in follow-up observations from 2011 to 2014 as participants in the Ewha Infant Growth Cohort (2001-2006). Subjects with a body mass index (BMI) > or =85th percentile were classified in the overweight group for the analysis (37 subjects, 14.5%). RESULTS: No significant differences in thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) or free thyroxine (FT4) levels were observed between the overweight and normal groups containing a total of 256 children (122 boys, 134 girls). Waist circumference, BMI z score, and WHtR were negatively correlated with TSH levels after adjusting for age, sex, birth weight and puberty status (P=0.03, P=0.04, P=0.05). However other obesity index did not show any relationship with TSH or FT4 levels. CONCLUSION: In children with normal thyroid function, waist circumference and BMI z score showed a negative correlation with TSH levels.