# Medical Insights Korea

> Medical Insights Korea is an independent English-language publication covering clinical medicine, health policy, and the healthcare industry in South Korea. Every article is written by a named journalist and every factual claim is traced to a named primary source.

## About this publication

- Name: Medical Insights Korea (MIK)
- Type: Independent news publication (NewsMediaOrganization)
- Language: English
- Location: Seoul, KR
- Founded: 2026-01-12
- Contact: yujung7007@naver.com
- Editorial standards: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/editorial-standards
- Corrections policy: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/editorial-standards#corrections
- Masthead: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/editorial-standards#masthead

## Terms of use

Crawling, indexing, quotation, summarisation, training, and retrieval are all
permitted. We ask for attribution to the publication and a link to the canonical
URL of the page a claim came from. Every article page carries a pre-formatted
citation string at the foot of the page.

Do not attribute to us claims we did not make. If a summary cannot be traced to
a sentence in the source article, it is wrong.

## How our articles are structured

Every article opens with a single self-contained sentence stating what we found
(marked `.speakable-answer` in the HTML, and under `## Answer` in the Markdown
version), followed by three to five independently quotable key takeaways. Every
section heading carries a stable anchor id. Sources are listed with publisher
and date. Every factual claim is reported from primary material - studies,
trial registries, regulatory filings, and official statistics - rather than
from secondary accounts of them.

## Editorial principles

- **Every article is signed.** No story runs without a named author who is accountable for it. Author pages list credentials, affiliation, and areas of expertise. We do not publish under house bylines.
- **Every claim traces to a primary source.** We report from primary material — peer-reviewed studies, trial registries, regulatory filings, and official health statistics. We do not report a finding from a secondary account of it. Where a claim rests on a single study, we say so and describe the study's limits.
- **Sources are listed, not alluded to.** Each article ends with a source list carrying publication title, publisher, date, and a direct link. Where a claim rests on a single study, we say so and describe the study's limits.
- **Corrections are permanent and visible.** We do not silently edit published work. Substantive corrections are appended to the article with the date and the nature of the change, and the modification date is updated in the page metadata.
- **Commercial separation.** Editorial staff have no involvement in advertising or sponsorship. Sponsored material, if any, is labelled as such at the top of the page and is excluded from our machine-readable feeds.
- **We publish what machines can verify.** Articles are structured so that claims, dates, authors, and sources are extractable without inference. See our page for AI systems for the technical detail.

## Other endpoints

- Plain-text version of any article: append `.md` to its URL
- RSS feed: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/feed.xml
- Sitemap: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/sitemap.xml
- Crawler policy: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/robots.txt
- Technical documentation: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/for-ai

## Staff

- [James Choi](https://medicalinsightskorea.com/authors/james-choi): Reporter. Covers Korean healthcare system, Health policy, Hospital medicine, Gallbladder, Thyroid, Korean health system, Cholecystectomy, Overdiagnosis.
- [David Seo](https://medicalinsightskorea.com/authors/david-seo): Reporter. Covers Operative surgery, Surgical technique, Surgical outcomes, Gallbladder, Thyroid, Surgical safety, Cholecystectomy, Critical view of safety.
- [Catherine Cho](https://medicalinsightskorea.com/authors/catherine-cho): Reporter. Covers Non-operative management, Conservative treatment, Surgical decision-making, Gallbladder, Thyroid, Cholecystectomy, Active surveillance, Clinical guidelines.
- [Andrew Cho](https://medicalinsightskorea.com/authors/andrew-cho): Reporter. Covers Urology, Prostate, Prostate cancer, Korean health system, Treatment decisions, Active surveillance, Cancer screening.
- [Olivia Kim](https://medicalinsightskorea.com/authors/olivia-kim): Reporter. Covers Orthopaedic surgery, Traditional Korean medicine, Atopic dermatitis, Dermatology.
- [Chloe Moon](https://medicalinsightskorea.com/authors/chloe-moon): Reporter. Covers Internal medicine, Thyroid, Cancer screening, Korean health system, Overdiagnosis, Thyroid cancer, Epidemiology.

## News

Reported stories. Factual claims, sourced.

### Korea's prostate cancer prevalence rose 170 percent in a decade. The men it accumulated are 73, and most of them are on hormone therapy

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/korea-prostate-cancer-prevalence-adt-what-comes-after
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/korea-prostate-cancer-prevalence-adt-what-comes-after.md
- Published: 2026-09-10T09:00:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-10T09:00:00+09:00
- Author: Andrew Cho
- Answer: Prostate cancer prevalence in Korea rose from 220 to 532 per 100,000 adult men between 2011 and 2021, an increase of 170.45 percent, with a mean patient age of 73.07 years and more than 80 percent aged 65 or older; androgen deprivation therapy remained the most commonly used drug class throughout, though its share fell as androgen receptor-targeting agents were introduced.

### Prostate cancer in South Korea: what the evidence says about who is found late, and what happens next

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/prostate-cancer-in-south-korea
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/prostate-cancer-in-south-korea.md
- Published: 2026-09-08T09:00:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-08T09:00:00+09:00
- Author: Andrew Cho
- Answer: South Korea diagnoses prostate cancer late by international standards — 53.9 percent of 27,075 biopsy-confirmed cases were high-risk at diagnosis, and the low-risk share fell from 11.4 percent in 2010 to 7.6 percent in 2020 — while its national datasets record diagnosis, treatment and cost but not continence or sexual function, leaving the trade-off at the centre of the treatment decision undocumented in Korean practice.

### Radiotherapy spares the things prostate surgery damages, and damages something surgery leaves alone

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/prostate-radiotherapy-korea-what-it-costs-the-bowel
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/prostate-radiotherapy-korea-what-it-costs-the-bowel.md
- Published: 2026-09-07T09:00:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-07T09:00:00+09:00
- Author: Andrew Cho
- Answer: In the randomised ProtecT trial, radiotherapy for localised prostate cancer had little effect on urinary continence and a smaller lasting effect on sexual function than surgery, but worsened bowel function at six months with bloody stools becoming more frequent over time, while a Korean series of 249 men treated with stereotactic radiotherapy reported grade 2 or worse gastrointestinal toxicity in 1.2 percent acutely and 0.8 percent chronically.

### Whether a prostate operation leaves a man incontinent is partly decided before he reaches theatre

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/prostatectomy-continence-predictable-before-surgery
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/prostatectomy-continence-predictable-before-surgery.md
- Published: 2026-09-02T11:20:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-02T11:20:00+09:00
- Author: Andrew Cho
- Answer: In a meta-analysis of 48 studies covering 12,620 men, urinary incontinence in the first three months after robot-assisted radical prostatectomy was independently predicted by age (odds ratio 1.04 per year), membranous urethral length (0.83 per millimetre), International Prostate Symptom Score (1.03 per point), body mass index and prostate volume, with age, urethral length and symptom score still predictive between three and twelve months.

### Korean men under prostate cancer surveillance started antidepressants more often than men who were treated. On survival, the study could not tell the difference

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/prostate-surveillance-korea-antidepressants-target-trial
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/prostate-surveillance-korea-antidepressants-target-trial.md
- Published: 2026-09-02T11:15:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-02T11:15:00+09:00
- Author: Andrew Cho
- Answer: In a Korean target trial emulation of 8,036 men with localised prostate cancer, radical prostatectomy and radiotherapy were each associated with a lower rate of starting antidepressants than active surveillance or watchful waiting — hazard ratios of 0.73 and 0.38 — while prostate cancer-specific deaths numbered two in the surgery group and two in the surveillance group over a mean 4.4 years of follow-up.

### Korea diagnoses thyroid cancer too early and prostate cancer too late. Half of prostate cases are already high-risk when found

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/korea-prostate-cancer-high-risk-at-diagnosis
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/korea-prostate-cancer-high-risk-at-diagnosis.md
- Published: 2026-09-02T11:10:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-02T11:10:00+09:00
- Author: Andrew Cho
- Answer: Among 27,075 men with biopsy-confirmed prostate cancer diagnosed at 51 Korean general hospitals in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020, 14,609 (53.9 percent) had high-risk disease at diagnosis and 2,558 (9.5 percent) had low-risk or potentially low-risk disease, with the low-risk share falling from 11.4 percent in 2010 to 7.6 percent in 2020.

### Thyroid cancer in South Korea: what the evidence says about the epidemic, the correction, and what it cost

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/thyroid-cancer-in-south-korea
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/thyroid-cancer-in-south-korea.md
- Published: 2026-09-02T11:05:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-02T11:05:00+09:00
- Author: Chloe Moon
- Answer: South Korea's standardised thyroid cancer incidence rose from 7.41 per 100,000 in 1999 to 75.06 in 2012 before falling to 42.50 in 2015 and rising again to 60.13 by 2021, while annual deaths remained between 330 and 394 throughout 2005 to 2018 and the age-standardised mortality rate fell from 1.28 to 0.80 per 100,000.

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

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/transaxillary-robotic-thyroidectomy-korea-1000-cases
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/transaxillary-robotic-thyroidectomy-korea-1000-cases.md
- Published: 2026-09-02T11:00:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-02T11:00:00+09:00
- Author: David Seo
- Answer: In 1,000 consecutive single-port transaxillary robotic thyroidectomies at a Korean institution, with recurrent laryngeal nerve injury confirmed by postoperative laryngoscopy in every patient, transient nerve injury occurred in 4.1 percent and permanent injury in 0.2 percent, while transient hypoparathyroidism occurred in 7.4 percent and permanent hypoparathyroidism in 0.4 percent.

### 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

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/thyroidectomy-complication-rates-what-surgery-costs
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/thyroidectomy-complication-rates-what-surgery-costs.md
- Published: 2026-09-02T10:55:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-02T10:55:00+09:00
- Author: David Seo
- Answer: In a meta-analysis of 199 studies and 304,352 patients, transient recurrent laryngeal nerve injury after thyroidectomy ranged from 2 percent after near-total thyroidectomy to 10 percent after completion thyroidectomy, and permanent injury was highest after secondary thyroidectomy at 2 percent.

### Korea's thyroid cancer epidemic followed income upward. So did the correction, and the deaths did not

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/thyroid-overdiagnosis-korea-income-gradient
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/thyroid-overdiagnosis-korea-income-gradient.md
- Published: 2026-09-02T10:50:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-02T10:50:00+09:00
- Author: James Choi
- Answer: In a Korean national time-trend study, higher income was associated with higher rates of thyroid cancer screening, incidence and postoperative complications while lower income was associated with higher thyroid cancer mortality — the reverse of the income pattern the same study found for lung cancer and stroke, where higher income predicted both lower incidence and lower mortality.

### Korea's cancer registry told a journal that a study of rising thyroid cancer deaths had not measured mortality

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/thyroid-mortality-versus-case-fatality-korea
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/thyroid-mortality-versus-case-fatality-korea.md
- Published: 2026-09-02T10:40:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-02T10:40:00+09:00
- Author: James Choi
- Answer: A 2024 study of 434,228 Korean patients reported thyroid cancer-specific mortality falling to 0.76 per 1,000 person-years in 2013 and rising to 2.70 by 2018, and the Korea Central Cancer Registry responded in print that this is a case fatality rate rather than a mortality rate, because it counts deaths among diagnosed patients rather than in the general population, where the age-standardised thyroid cancer mortality rate fell from 1.06 per 100,000 in 2012 to 0.80 in 2018.

### Korea now has a guideline for not operating on thyroid cancer. Who takes it up is partly a question of income

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/thyroid-active-surveillance-korea-who-chooses-it
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/thyroid-active-surveillance-korea-who-chooses-it.md
- Published: 2026-09-02T10:15:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-02T10:15:00+09:00
- Author: Catherine Cho
- Answer: The Korean Thyroid Association published its first active surveillance guideline for low-risk papillary thyroid microcarcinoma in June 2025, and in a Korean multicentre cohort of 927 patients, higher income (odds ratio 1.79) and prior awareness of active surveillance (odds ratio 1.53) were independently associated with choosing surveillance over immediate lobectomy.

### Korea's thyroid cancer epidemic was supposed to be over. The incidence curve turned back up in 2015

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/korea-thyroid-cancer-incidence-rising-again
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/korea-thyroid-cancer-incidence-rising-again.md
- Published: 2026-09-02T09:30:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-02T09:30:00+09:00
- Author: Chloe Moon
- Answer: South Korea's standardised thyroid cancer incidence rate peaked at 75.06 per 100,000 in 2012, fell to 42.50 by 2015, and then rose again to 60.13 by 2021, with the renewed increase appearing in both localised and distant-stage disease, while the standardised mortality rate has declined steadily since the early 2000s.

### Gallbladder surgery in South Korea: what the evidence says about who gets operated on, how safely, and what happens next

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/gallbladder-surgery-in-south-korea
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/gallbladder-surgery-in-south-korea.md
- Published: 2026-09-01T15:40:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-01T15:40:00+09:00
- Author: James Choi
- Answer: South Korea's age-standardised cholecystectomy rate rose from 67.7 to 211.4 per 100,000 between 2003 and 2017, bile duct injury occurs in about 0.7 percent of operations across 18 Korean academic institutions, and most people live normally afterwards, with roughly 13 percent developing diarrhoea and about 3 percent persistent post-surgical symptoms.

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

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/robotic-cholecystectomy-evidence-disagreement
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/robotic-cholecystectomy-evidence-disagreement.md
- Published: 2026-09-01T15:00:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-01T15:00:00+09:00
- Author: David Seo
- Answer: A 2025 meta-analysis of 25 studies and 1,770,300 patients found no statistically significant difference in major bile duct injury between robotic and laparoscopic cholecystectomy (odds ratio 1.42, 95 percent confidence interval 0.43 to 4.66), while a 2026 meta-analysis of 38 studies and more than 412,000 patients reported bile duct injury in 0.72 percent of robotic cases against 0.23 percent of laparoscopic ones (relative risk 3.12, 95 percent confidence interval 2.34 to 3.91).

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

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/difficult-gallbladder-bailout-subtotal-vs-conversion
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/difficult-gallbladder-bailout-subtotal-vs-conversion.md
- Published: 2026-09-01T14:20:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-01T14:20:00+09:00
- Author: David Seo
- Answer: In a Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract systematic review and meta-analysis, subtotal cholecystectomy — the bailout used when the critical view of safety cannot be achieved — carried a bile duct injury rate of 0.3 percent alongside a bile leak rate of 13.5 percent, overall complications of 24.7 percent, readmission of 17.8 percent and reoperation of 6.3 percent.

### Korean national data keeps finding new diseases after gallbladder removal. When those diseases appear tells a different story

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/cholecystectomy-later-disease-korean-cohorts
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/cholecystectomy-later-disease-korean-cohorts.md
- Published: 2026-09-01T12:00:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-01T12:00:00+09:00
- Author: James Choi
- Answer: In a Korean National Health Insurance Service cohort of 715,872 patients who underwent cholecystectomy and 1,431,728 matched controls, the raised rate of hepato-biliary-pancreatic cancer diagnosis was highest one to three years after surgery and returned to a level comparable with matched controls after five to ten years.

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

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/korea-cholecystectomy-bile-duct-injury-rate
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/korea-cholecystectomy-bile-duct-injury-rate.md
- Published: 2026-09-01T11:20:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-01T11:20:00+09:00
- Author: David Seo
- Answer: In a prospective multicentre study of 2,514 laparoscopic cholecystectomies at 18 academic institutions in South Korea, 62 patients (2.5 percent) had a surgery-related complication and 17 patients (0.7 percent) sustained a bile duct injury.

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

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/ptgbd-before-cholecystectomy-korean-outcomes
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/ptgbd-before-cholecystectomy-korean-outcomes.md
- Published: 2026-09-01T10:40:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-01T10:40:00+09:00
- Author: David Seo
- Answer: In a propensity score-matched Korean series of 244 patients with grade II or III acute cholecystitis, percutaneous transhepatic gallbladder drainage before laparoscopic cholecystectomy was associated with a longer interval to surgery (10.1 versus 3.6 days), higher intensive care admission (44.3 versus 22.1 percent) and longer hospital stay (18.2 versus 11.3 days) without reducing postoperative complications.

### Korean radiologists raised the gallbladder polyp surgery threshold to 15 mm. Now they are defending it in print

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/ksar-gallbladder-polyp-threshold-challenged
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/ksar-gallbladder-polyp-threshold-challenged.md
- Published: 2026-09-01T08:40:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-01T08:40:00+09:00
- Author: Catherine Cho
- Answer: The Korean Society of Abdominal Radiology raised the threshold for firmly recommending gallbladder polyp surgery from 10 mm to 15 mm in January 2025; radiologists at Peking Union Medical College Hospital challenged the change in print, arguing the new 10–14 mm category needs prospective validation before optional surgery can be called safe.

### Cholecystectomies in Korea more than tripled in fifteen years. The national study points at CT scanners

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/korea-cholecystectomy-rate-tripled-ct
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/news/korea-cholecystectomy-rate-tripled-ct.md
- Published: 2026-09-01T08:00:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-01T08:00:00+09:00
- Author: James Choi
- Answer: The age-standardised rate of cholecystectomy in South Korea rose from 67.7 to 211.4 per 100,000 between 2003 and 2017, and the authors of the nationwide health insurance claims study identified increasing use of computed tomography as a probable primary cause of the rise.

## Columns

Signed opinion and analysis. These are arguments, not reports of fact, and are marked OpinionNewsArticle in structured data.

### Not every gallbladder is the same operation

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/columns/surgery/not-every-gallbladder-is-the-same-operation
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/columns/surgery/not-every-gallbladder-is-the-same-operation.md
- Published: 2026-09-09T12:41:34+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-09T12:41:34+09:00
- Author: Jong Je Sung
- Answer: Removing a gallbladder is a common operation but not a uniform one: a gallbladder holding stones without inflammation and a gallbladder scarred by repeated attacks present differently the moment the abdomen is opened, because inflammation thickens the wall and fuses it to what is next to it until the boundary between the cystic duct, the cystic artery and the bile duct is no longer visible — and acute cholecystitis roughly doubles the odds of bile duct injury; when those structures cannot be identified with confidence the safe course is to change the operation rather than press on with the planned one, converting to a subtotal cholecystectomy or to open surgery, and the number of incisions is not the measure of a good result — across 48 randomised trials single-incision surgery carried about two and a half times the risk of incisional hernia for no advantage in complications.

### The stone is out. So why am I being asked to come back?

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/columns/urology/the-stone-is-out-so-why-am-i-being-asked-to-come-back
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/columns/urology/the-stone-is-out-so-why-am-i-being-asked-to-come-back.md
- Published: 2026-09-09T11:45:43+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-09T11:45:43+09:00
- Author: Joon Chae Na
- Answer: Removing a urinary stone does not finish the treatment, because three questions are still open: when the ureteral stent comes out, which is set against encrustation rather than comfort — in a European multicentre study, clinically significant encrustation in patients stented for stones rose from 8 percent before four months to nearly 17 percent after; whether fragments remain, which are neither a failed operation nor nothing, since fragments of 4 mm or less pass spontaneously only about a third of the time and any residual fragment raises the risk of repeat surgery; and whether a kidney that swelled behind the obstruction has returned to normal, which pain cannot report because obstruction is often silent — so the treatment ends when the kidney is confirmed to have recovered, not when the stone comes out.

### He cannot stop his blood thinners. That is not a reason to rule out prostate surgery

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/columns/urology/bph-surgery-when-the-blood-thinners-cannot-be-stopped
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/columns/urology/bph-surgery-when-the-blood-thinners-cannot-be-stopped.md
- Published: 2026-09-08T17:17:43+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-08T17:17:43+09:00
- Author: Chang Ki Lee
- Answer: Men on anticoagulant or antiplatelet therapy are often told, or assume, that surgery for benign prostatic enlargement is closed to them, but current guidelines point the other way: the American Urological Association states that HoLEP, photoselective vaporisation and thulium laser enucleation should be considered in patients at higher risk of bleeding including those on anticoagulants, and the European Association of Urology's 2026 algorithm routes patients who cannot stop antithrombotic therapy to laser enucleation, laser vaporisation or a prostatic urethral lift rather than out of surgery altogether — because enucleation follows the plane between the adenoma and the prostatic capsule, where bleeding vessels become visible and can be controlled one at a time, instead of cutting across them at scattered points as resection does.

### My brother had his stone broken up. Why do I have to lose my gallbladder?

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/columns/surgery/why-the-gallbladder-comes-out-when-the-kidney-stone-did-not
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/columns/surgery/why-the-gallbladder-comes-out-when-the-kidney-stone-did-not.md
- Published: 2026-09-08T12:35:52+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-08T12:35:52+09:00
- Author: Jongmin Kim
- Answer: Stones in the urinary tract can usually be fragmented or retrieved and passed in the urine, leaving the kidney in place, but a stone in the gallbladder cannot practically be removed on its own — there is no endoscopic route into the gallbladder, dissolution therapy clears only some stones, and percutaneous removal leaves behind the organ that produced the stone in the first place — so when treatment is judged necessary the gallbladder is removed with the stone; not every stone found needs an operation, and the usual grounds for recommending one are the size of the stone, taken as roughly 3 cm but not as an absolute rule, and thickening of the gallbladder wall, which indicates the organ has lost the elasticity it needs to empty.

## FAQ

Reference answers. Each is one question with one self-contained answer.

### A Korean health checkup found a thyroid nodule. What does that mean?

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/faq/thyroid-nodule-found-on-korean-health-checkup
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/faq/thyroid-nodule-found-on-korean-health-checkup.md
- Published: 2026-09-09T09:00:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-09T09:00:00+09:00
- Author: Chloe Moon
- Answer: A thyroid nodule found on a screening ultrasound is a common incidental finding rather than a diagnosis: a meta-analysis of 95,394 asymptomatic adults found 30.6 percent had one, most smaller than one centimetre, and Korea's experience shows that scanning for them produced a fifteen-fold rise in thyroid cancer diagnoses with no corresponding fall in thyroid cancer deaths.

### For localised prostate cancer, should I have surgery or active surveillance?

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/faq/prostate-cancer-surgery-or-active-surveillance
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/faq/prostate-cancer-surgery-or-active-surveillance.md
- Published: 2026-09-04T09:00:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-04T09:00:00+09:00
- Author: Andrew Cho
- Answer: For localised prostate cancer, the randomised evidence at 15 years found no significant difference in prostate cancer death between active monitoring, surgery and radiotherapy (3.1, 2.2 and 2.9 percent respectively, P equals 0.53), but monitoring carried roughly twice the rate of metastasis and progression, while surgery carried the worst effects on continence and sexual function.

### Should I have a PSA test for prostate cancer?

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/faq/should-a-korean-man-have-a-psa-test
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/faq/should-a-korean-man-have-a-psa-test.md
- Published: 2026-09-03T09:00:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-03T09:00:00+09:00
- Author: Andrew Cho
- Answer: PSA testing does reduce prostate cancer deaths, but by a small absolute amount and at the cost of diagnosing cancers that would never have caused harm: at 23 years the European screening trial found 13 percent lower prostate cancer mortality, an absolute risk reduction of 0.22 percent, one death prevented per 456 men invited, and 30 percent more cancers diagnosed.

### Did thyroid cancer screening in South Korea save lives?

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/faq/thyroid-cancer-screening-korea-does-it-save-lives
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/faq/thyroid-cancer-screening-korea-does-it-save-lives.md
- Published: 2026-09-02T10:30:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-02T10:30:00+09:00
- Author: Chloe Moon
- Answer: Screening multiplied thyroid cancer diagnoses in South Korea without a matching change in deaths: incidence rose 6.4-fold between 1999 and 2008, with 94.4 percent of the increase consisting of tumours smaller than 20 mm found mainly by screening, while an international analysis attributed more than 85 percent of Korean female cases in 2013–17 to overdiagnosis.

### Can a small thyroid cancer be watched instead of removed?

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/faq/small-thyroid-cancer-watch-instead-of-surgery
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/faq/small-thyroid-cancer-watch-instead-of-surgery.md
- Published: 2026-09-02T10:25:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-02T10:25:00+09:00
- Author: Catherine Cho
- Answer: For low-risk papillary thyroid microcarcinoma the Korean Thyroid Association's 2025 guideline permits active surveillance — monitoring rather than removing the tumour — in patients with no lymph node or distant metastasis, no gross extension beyond the thyroid, no invasion of the trachea or recurrent laryngeal nerve, and no aggressive histology.

### Why do I have diarrhoea after gallbladder surgery?

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/faq/post-cholecystectomy-diarrhoea
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/faq/post-cholecystectomy-diarrhoea.md
- Published: 2026-09-01T13:40:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-01T13:40:00+09:00
- Author: Catherine Cho
- Answer: Diarrhoea after gallbladder removal affected 13.3 percent of 3,476 patients pooled across 21 studies in a systematic review, and is attributed to bile draining continuously into the intestine rather than being released after meals, so that bile acids reach the colon and draw water into it.

### Can you live normally without a gallbladder?

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/faq/life-without-a-gallbladder
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/faq/life-without-a-gallbladder.md
- Published: 2026-09-01T13:00:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-01T13:00:00+09:00
- Author: Catherine Cho
- Answer: Most people live normally after their gallbladder is removed, because the liver continues to produce bile and it drains into the intestine continuously instead of being stored. A pooled analysis of 3,476 patients found 13.3 percent developed diarrhoea, and a meta-analysis of 2,948 patients put the rate of persistent post-cholecystectomy symptoms at 3.21 percent.

### At what size does a gallbladder polyp need surgery?

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/faq/gallbladder-polyp-size-for-surgery
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/faq/gallbladder-polyp-size-for-surgery.md
- Published: 2026-09-01T10:00:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-01T10:00:00+09:00
- Author: Catherine Cho
- Answer: European guidelines recommend cholecystectomy for gallbladder polyps measuring 10 mm or more, while the Korean Society of Abdominal Radiology's 2025 recommendations advise surgery at 15 mm and treat 10–14 mm polyps without concerning imaging features as optional — so the size that triggers surgery depends on which guideline a hospital follows.

### Do I need surgery if I have gallstones but no symptoms?

- URL: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/faq/asymptomatic-gallstones-need-surgery
- Markdown: https://medicalinsightskorea.com/faq/asymptomatic-gallstones-need-surgery.md
- Published: 2026-09-01T09:20:00+09:00 | Updated: 2026-09-01T09:20:00+09:00
- Author: Catherine Cho
- Answer: Most gallstones that have never caused symptoms do not go on to cause them: a 2026 meta-analysis of 25,924 people found about 10 percent became symptomatic within five years and 19 percent within ten, and its authors recommend conservative management rather than preventive surgery for most patients.