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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Neurol.
Sec. Neuro-Otology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fneur.2025.1560388
Nationwide Trends in Steroid Therapy for Vestibular Neuritis: Insights from South Korea's Health Insurance Review and Assessment Data
Provisionally accepted- 1Wonju College of Medicine, Yonsei University, Wonju, Republic of Korea
- 2Department of neurology, Ulsan University Hospital, Ulsan, Republic of Korea
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Background: While debates persist regarding the benefits and drawbacks of steroid use in treating vestibular neuritis (VN), few studies have analyzed real-world prescription patterns and clinical outcomes. This study aimed to fill this gap by leveraging South Korea's Health Insurance Review and Assessment (HIRA) big data to explore the actual use of steroids in clinical practice and their associated patient characteristics.Using HIRA data from 2007 to 2022, 237,673 VN patients were retrospectively analyzed and categorized into steroid (n=23,235) and non-steroid groups (n=214,438). Demographic, clinical, and economic variables, including age, sex, hospital type, medication use, and costs, were statistically compared using chi-square and t-tests.Results: Steroid prescriptions accounted for 9.8% of VN cases, predominantly in females (63.2%) and younger patients (2.7% in the 20-24 age group vs. 1.6% in the non-steroid group). Prescription rates declined significantly in patients aged 55 years and older. Outpatients (87.2%) and those treated in clinics (65.1% for males, 75.3% for females) were more likely to receive steroids. Steroid prescriptions were also associated with lower hospital costs and insurance payments compared to the non-steroid group.This study is the first to analyze real-world steroid usage for VN through big data in Korea, offering valuable insights into clinical practices and prescription trends. Clinicians, especially in primary and outpatient clinic, are more likely to favour steroid treatment and avoid further testing or treatment when they are confident of diagnosing VN. However, the high rate of VN diagnosis in women suggests that vestibular migraine may be underdiagnosed and steroids may be misused.
Keywords: Acute vestibular neuritis, Prevalence, big data, health insurance, Steroids
Received: 14 Jan 2025; Accepted: 10 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yoon, Kong, Seo and Park. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jiyun Park, Department of neurology, Ulsan University Hospital, Ulsan, Republic of Korea
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