{
  "schema_version": 1,
  "kind": "condition",
  "id": "silicosis",
  "name": "Silicosis",
  "category": "chronic",
  "sources": "American Thoracic Society: Adverse Effects of Crystalline Silica Exposure (1997) · WHO Framework for Collaborative Action on Tuberculosis and Comorbidities 2022 · Egyptian MOH National Tuberculosis Control Program 2022 · StatPearls: Silicosis (NCBI Bookshelf NBK594245), Treatment and Management · Silicosis - disease-level clinical article (silicosis-full.txt)",
  "review_status": "reviewed",
  "verified_against": "StatPearls: Silicosis (NCBI Bookshelf NBK594245), Treatment and Management · Silicosis - disease-level clinical article (silicosis-full.txt)",
  "verified_date": "2026-08",
  "treatments": [
    {
      "id": 1641,
      "generic": "Stop the exposure, screen for TB, refer (Recognition & Referral)",
      "line": 1,
      "is_adjunct": false,
      "form": null,
      "strength_mg": null,
      "adult_dose": "Stop further silica exposure (respirator and dust control at work, or a genuine change of job or task) and refer to pulmonology for HRCT staging and lung function testing. Screen for active and latent tuberculosis at diagnosis and periodically while exposure continues. Give pneumococcal and annual influenza vaccination. There is no drug that treats the fibrosis - the article states outright that nothing currently on offer is effective against silicosis.",
      "adult_duration": "Lifelong follow-up; there is no disease-modifying drug",
      "dose_source": "StatPearls: Silicosis (NCBI Bookshelf NBK594245), Treatment and Management",
      "rationale": "Stop further silica exposure (respirator and dust control at work, or a genuine change of job or task) and refer to pulmonology for HRCT staging and lung function testing. Screen for active and latent tuberculosis at diagnosis and periodically while exposure continues. Give pneumococcal and annual influenza vaccination. There is no drug that treats the fibrosis - the article states outright that nothing currently on offer is effective against silicosis.",
      "cautions": [
        "Silicosis raises the risk of active tuberculosis roughly three-fold - screen for TB at diagnosis and periodically thereafter for as long as exposure continues (see Tuberculosis primary care referral for the screening/treatment pathway).",
        "Refer urgently for haemoptysis, rapidly progressive breathlessness, or signs of progressive massive fibrosis or cor pulmonale.",
        "Continued exposure after diagnosis accelerates progression - advice alone rarely changes this; a real change in job, task, or workplace dust control is required.",
        "Simple silicosis can progress even after exposure stops, and silica exposure independently raises lung cancer and COPD risk - lifelong specialist follow-up is needed, not a one-off referral.",
        "No drug row appears here because no drug treats this disease, not because it is unfinished. What the article describes is supportive care: oxygen for the hypoxic patient, the recommended vaccinations, infection treated promptly, and pulmonary rehabilitation - with lung transplantation as the mainstay once the disease reaches its end stage. Targeted drugs are not there yet: it notes that a better grasp of how silicosis does its damage points towards anti-fibrotic and anti-cytokine treatment, but that no large randomised controlled trial has yet tested any of them for effect or for safety.",
        "The one drug decision that IS made here is tuberculosis chemoprophylaxis, and it belongs to the TB service. International guidance, as the article reports it, is to screen silica-exposed workers for tuberculosis and to give chemoprophylaxis where the infection is latent. The article names no drug and no dose for it, so none is printed here - see the tuberculosis entries for the regimens.",
        "Stopping exposure does not stop the disease. The article is blunt: the inflammation and the damage in the lung go on advancing even after silica exposure has ceased completely. It still has to stop, because continuing accelerates it."
      ],
      "peds_mgkg_low": null,
      "peds_mgkg_high": null,
      "peds_max_mg": null,
      "peds_basis": null,
      "peds_unit": null,
      "peds_note": "Silicosis is an adult occupational disease from years of cumulative exposure; not applicable in children",
      "peds_min_weight_kg": null,
      "peds_max_weight_kg": null,
      "peds_age_min_months": null,
      "peds_age_max_months": null,
      "peds_age_bands": null,
      "peds_doses": null,
      "brands": [],
      "condition_id": "silicosis"
    }
  ]
}