PNEUMOCONIOSIS AND INFECTION

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Abstract
The relationship of pneumoconiosis and lung infection has been the subject of much study and investigation in the past twenty-five years. Although most of these studies have concerned themselves with silicosis and tuberculosis, other pneumoconioses and other lung infections have been scrutinized more recently as to their possible relationship but with no relationship observed. I shall therefore limit this discussion largely to the silicosis-tuberculosis combination. Nontuberculous infections, particularly the pneumonias, have been shown by numerous clinical studies and animal investigations to be no more prevalent with any of the pneumoconioses than in the population generally. Even when the patient has definite silicosis, increasing data suggest that it does not cause an increased susceptibility to pneumonia or other nontuberculous infection.1Moreover, the benign pneumoconioses, such as the siderosis of welders and grinders, have in my experience not been responsible for more pulmonary infections of any kind, including tuberculosis.2A

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