Silicosis

For a lay person:

Silicosis is a lung disease caused by breathing in fine silica dust, found in work such as quarrying, mining, sandblasting, stone cutting and engineered-stone benchtop fabrication. The dust scars the lungs over years, causing cough and breathlessness that can keep worsening even after exposure stops. It cannot be reversed, so preventing dust exposure is essential.

For a trained medical person:

A fibrotic pneumoconiosis from inhaled respirable crystalline silica, occurring as chronic, accelerated or acute forms, with increased risk of tuberculosis, lung cancer, COPD and autoimmune disease. Diagnosis rests on occupational history and chest imaging (nodular opacities, progressive massive fibrosis, eggshell hilar calcification), with HRCT and lung function testing. There is no disease-modifying treatment: management is ending exposure, screening and treating tuberculosis, smoking cessation, vaccination, pulmonary rehabilitation and oxygen, with lung transplantation for selected advanced cases.

In Chinese medicine:

Liu and Tseng's textbook differentiates this condition into these patterns: Dryness Damaging Lung; Phlegm and Qi Stagnation and Nodule Formation; Blood Stasis Obstructing the Collaterals; Lung Yin Deficiency; Lung and Spleen Qi Deficiency; Lung and Kidney Qi and Yin Deficiency; Heart Yang Deficiency. Treatment follows the pattern a patient presents with, not the Western diagnosis alone.

When to get help: See a doctor if you have worked with silica dust and develop cough or breathlessness, and tell them about your job. Seek urgent care for severe breathlessness, coughing up blood or fever with night sweats, which may indicate tuberculosis.