[Contribution to graphite dust lungs]

This is a report on a male patient of 71 years of age who had been a graphite mill worker for about 14 years. Despite respiratory insufficiency he was rejected in 1985 as an applicant for being recognised as a victim of a professional disease, because the radiologically visible changes in the lung were only discrete. Perbronchial lung biopsy was performed in January 1990 as his dyspnoea increased. Histological examination revealed graphite dust disease of the lung. Asteroid bodies in multinucleated giant cells were an unusual finding. Energy-dispersing x-ray microanalysis proved that the so-called graphite dust disease lung was actually a type of mixed dust pneumoconiosis.