Stroke becomes the 3rd important cause of death in Korea; is it a time to toast?

Abstract

Aside from cancer, stroke has long been the number one cause of death in Korea, followed by heart disease. Last year, our gov­ ernment reported that this order was reversed, due primarily to a decrease in stroke mortality (Figure 1). The change is strik­ ing; ten years ago (in 2002), stroke mortality was about two times higher than that of heart disease (77 per 100,000 vs. 36.9 per 100,000, respectively) while in 2012, the mortality rate due to heart disease and stroke was 52.5 and 51.1 per 100,000 peo­ ple, respectively. One of the important reasons for the rapid decline in stroke mortality is the improved quality of stroke care during the last 10 years; public awareness of stroke symptoms improved, the proportion of patients visiting hospitals within 3 hours increas­ ed, and door to needle time shortened, 1 due in part to the wide­ spread use of a computerized in­hospital alert system. 2 Accord­