Epidemiology and demographics of slipped capital femoral epiphysis in South Korea: A nationwide cohort study

Nak Tscheol Kim; Jae Jung Min; Eunjeong Ji; Moon Seok Park; Ki Hyuk Sung

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0283123

Epidemiology and demographics of slipped capital femoral epiphysis in South Korea: A nationwide cohort study

PLoS One. 2023 Mar 31;18(3):e0283123. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0283123. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Nak Tscheol Kim¹, Jae Jung Min¹, Eunjeong Ji², Moon Seok Park¹, Ki Hyuk Sung¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, Gyeonggi, Korea.
² Medical Research Collaborating Center, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, Korea.

Abstract

Background: This study investigated the epidemiology and demographics of slipped capital femoral epiphysis (SCFE) in South Korea using a nationwide population-based database.

Methods: Information on sex, age at onset, endocrine comorbidities, history of growth hormone therapy, history of radiation therapy, surgical methods, and complications in patients with SCFE aged younger than 18 years between 2007 and 2019 was retrieved from the Korean Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service database.

Results: Data were available for 586 children (429 boys, 157 girls). The average age at onset was 11.1 ± 1.8 years (boys, 11.3 ± 1.9; girls, 10.6 ± 1.5). Five hundred and twenty-nine (90.3%) patients were aged 9-14 years; the incidence rate in this age group was 6.0/100,000 (95% confidence interval, 5.5-6.6) and significantly higher in boys (8.4 vs 3.5, p<0.001). There was a significant increase in the annual incidence rate from 0.96/100,000 in 2009 to 2.05/100,000 in 2019 (p = 0.006). Ninety-five patients (16.2%) had endocrine comorbidities or a history of hormone/radiation therapy. Osteotomy and internal fixation were performed in 59 patients and in situ pinning in 527. Seventy-six patients developed postoperative complications.

Conclusion: The annual incidence rate of SCFE in South Korea has increased since 2009.

Copyright: © 2023 Kim et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Child
Cohort Studies
Demography
Female
Humans
Male
Osteotomy / adverse effects
Republic of Korea / epidemiology
Retrospective Studies
Slipped Capital Femoral Epiphyses* / epidemiology
Slipped Capital Femoral Epiphyses* / etiology
Slipped Capital Femoral Epiphyses* / surgery

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF) grant funded by the Korea government(MSIT) (No. NRF-2019R1C1C1010352) and by the Korea Medical Device Development Fund grant funded by the Korea government (Project Number: RS-2020-KD000308).