Automated Mass Screening for Comorbidities of Vitiligo Using the National Health Insurance Database

Although the study design for identifying specific disease associations using a health insurance database has been well-established, few studies explore unknown comorbidities. We conducted a series of automated case-control studies for all International Classification of Disease, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification diagnostic codes (A01–Z99) using the Korean National Health Insurance database from 2007 to 2017 to reveal undiscovered disease associations of vitiligo. A total of 90,297 patients with vitiligo and 90,297 age- and sex-matched controls without vitiligo were included, and disease associations for 1,265 relevant diagnostic codes were screened. A meta-analysis of the individual ORs for each International Classification of Disease, Tenth Revision code was performed to identify the possibility of selection bias. Finally, the association with vitiligo was significantly increased in 45 diseases and decreased in 6 diseases. We not only reaffirmed the positive correlation between vitiligo and other autoimmune diseases but also observed associations with obsessive-compulsive disorder and melanoma. In contrast, femur fracture showed a negative correlation. In this study, we attempted an automated mass screening and suggested a possible selection bias. In the era of large-scale databases, a systematic and comprehensive approach might be needed.