David Seo서형석

Reporter

Medical Insights Korea

David Seo reports on operative surgery in South Korea for Medical Insights Korea, covering surgical technique, operative practice, and the outcome evidence behind it.

Covers: Operative surgery · Surgical technique · Surgical outcomes · Gallbladder · Thyroid · Varicose Veins · Obesity · Cholecystectomy
Record: 22 written
Contact: gudtjr345@gmail.com

Written by David Seo

FAQ · Varicose Veins

Is the glue treatment better than laser for varicose veins?

It closes the vein just as well and leaves less bruising and numbness. The events that actually separate the two are too rare for a study of 7,844 patients to see.

David Seo24 Oct 20265 min read

News · Prostate

Tamsulosin is supposed to make cataract surgery riskier. In Korean national data the complication rates were the same

0.83 percent against 0.88 percent, and an adjusted odds ratio of 0.997. The finding does not retire the warning — it is what a warning looks like once surgeons have acted on it.

David Seo22 Oct 20265 min read

FAQ · Gallbladder

I have stones in the gallbladder and in the bile duct. Is that one operation or two?

The gallbladder and the bile duct are different structures, and a stone that has moved from one to the other adds a second problem that has to be solved as well.

David Seo19 Oct 20267 min read

FAQ · Gallbladder

I have been told I have Mirizzi syndrome. What does that change?

A stone lodged in the neck of the gallbladder, pressing on the bile duct beside it, turns a routine operation into one that is far more often converted to open surgery.

David Seo15 Oct 20266 min read

News · Varicose Veins

Gluing the vein shut works as well as burning it. The difference is in what each one leaves behind

A meta-analysis of 7,844 patients found cyanoacrylate and radiofrequency ablation equivalent on closure, with less bruising and numbness after glue. The harms that separate them are the ones a meta-analysis of this size cannot measure.

David Seo15 Oct 20267 min read

News · Varicose Veins

Three varicose vein treatments, followed for fourteen years. Recurrence differed twelvefold and quality of life did not differ at all

Foam sclerotherapy sent 56.4 percent of patients back for another procedure against 8.2 percent after laser. At fourteen years all three groups reported the same symptom scores — which makes the question what you are willing to count as a cost.

David Seo11 Oct 20267 min read

FAQ · Varicose Veins

Will my varicose veins come back after treatment?

Fourteen-year data say it depends enormously on which procedure — twelvefold. Then the same data say quality of life ended up identical, which changes what the recurrence rate is telling you.

David Seo9 Oct 20265 min read

News · Obesity

116 Korean patients followed for two years after weight-loss surgery: the weight came back a little, the quality of life did not

Total weight loss peaked at 27.5 percent at eighteen months and settled at 24.7 percent at two years. Diabetes remission went the other way, rising from 80.7 to 85.7 percent.

David Seo9 Oct 20266 min read

FAQ · Obesity

I'm on a weight-loss injection and I need an operation. Do I have to stop the drug first?

Korean anaesthetists say no, for most patients. The recommendation is a day of clear fluids and an ultrasound of the stomach if emptying is in doubt — not stopping the injection.

David Seo8 Oct 20264 min read

News · Haemorrhoids

Korea diagnoses haemorrhoids at 13.9 per 1,000 person-years and operates at 5.7. Different things predict each

A 467,567-person national cohort measured diagnosis and surgery as separate events. High income predicted being diagnosed. Alcohol predicted being operated on.

David Seo6 Oct 20265 min read

News · Obesity

856 Koreans had bariatric surgery in the first two insured years. Two years on, 71 percent of the diabetes had gone

Weight down 22.1 kg, waist down 17.4 cm, and which operation they had made no difference to the outcome. Just over half reached the 20 percent weight-loss threshold.

David Seo5 Oct 20266 min read

FAQ · Haemorrhoids

Do haemorrhoids have to be operated on?

Korean national data lets the question be answered with a proportion rather than an opinion: of the people who get the diagnosis, about two in five end up having surgery.

David Seo3 Oct 20264 min read

FAQ · Gallbladder

Is robotic gallbladder surgery better than keyhole surgery?

Two reviews published weeks apart appear to contradict each other on the injury that matters most. Read the confidence intervals and they agree — which is worse news than a contradiction.

David Seo21 Sept 20267 min read

FAQ · Thyroid

Can thyroid surgery be done without a scar on the neck?

Yes, and the approach was invented in Korea. The figure used to show it is also the safest comes from comparing differently selected patients, and the one Korean series that looked for nerve injury properly found four times as much.

David Seo18 Sept 20267 min read

FAQ · Gallbladder

How risky is gallbladder removal surgery?

Korean multicentre data puts serious complications at 2.5 percent and the worst one at 0.7 percent. Irish data on what happens to those patients afterwards explains why a rare complication still dominates the decision.

David Seo17 Sept 20266 min read

FAQ · Thyroid

Will thyroid surgery change my voice?

The figure patients are usually given describes nerve injury. A Korean study of 527 people whose nerves were verified intact found their voices changed anyway.

David Seo14 Sept 20266 min read

News · Thyroid

A thousand consecutive Korean robotic thyroidectomies report four times the nerve injury that pooled data gives the approach. The difference is who looked

Meta-analysis puts transient nerve injury after transaxillary surgery at 1 percent. A Korean series that laryngoscoped every patient found 4.1 percent — in a cohort whose average patient was 41 years old with an 11 mm tumour.

David Seo2 Sept 20266 min read

News · Thyroid

Pooled data on 304,352 thyroid operations puts nerve injury between 1 and 10 percent. The lowest figure belongs to the approach with the most selected patients

Overdiagnosis only matters because treatment costs something. Two 2026 meta-analyses quantify what it costs — and both contain numbers that will be misread if the intervals around them are dropped.

David Seo2 Sept 20266 min read

News · Gallbladder

Two meta-analyses published weeks apart disagree about whether robotic gallbladder surgery injures more bile ducts. Read the confidence intervals

One pooled 1.77 million patients and found no difference. The other pooled 412,000 and found triple the risk. They are less contradictory than they look, and neither settles the question.

David Seo1 Sept 20266 min read

News · Gallbladder

Surgeons stopped escaping difficult gallbladders by opening the abdomen. What they do instead is safer for the bile duct and harder on everything else

A society review of subtotal cholecystectomy puts bile duct injury at 0.3 percent and overall complications at 24.7 percent. That trade needs stating whenever a low conversion rate is offered as proof of surgical quality.

David Seo1 Sept 20266 min read

News · Gallbladder

Korea now has its own number for the worst thing that can go wrong in gallbladder surgery: 0.7 percent

A prospective study across 18 Korean academic hospitals put surgery-related complications at 2.5 percent and bile duct injury at 0.7 percent. Seventeen injuries in 2,514 operations is a small foundation for the risk calculator built on it.

David Seo1 Sept 20266 min read

News · Gallbladder

Draining the gallbladder before surgery added a week in hospital and doubled ICU admission. It did not reduce complications

Two propensity-matched Korean series of moderate-to-severe acute cholecystitis found no complication benefit from drainage before laparoscopic cholecystectomy. The delay that predicted harm was the patient's, not the surgeon's.

David Seo1 Sept 20266 min read