SWORD '94: surveillance of work-related and occupational respiratory disease in the UK

Chest and occupational physicians participating in SWORD are estimated to have seen some 3300 cases of work-related respiratory disease in 1994, similar to the totals for 1992-1993. Occupational asthma was the single most frequent diagnosis (941 cases), but asbestos exposure was considered the cause in 1529 cases of diseases of long latency. Large-scale follow-up studies showed (i) that most patients with occupational asthma failed to recover and that half had left their employer, and (ii) that many patients had long-term respiratory illness including asthma following inhalation accidents. Over the six years of the scheme there have been slight changes in attributed agents for occupational asthma and in the frequency of various diagnoses; for example, there has been a gradual reduction in reports of pneumoconiosis. A decline with birth cohort in the proportion of mesotheliomas in men employed in shipyards is shown, with some evidence of a compensatory trend in construction trades.