[Clinical course of silicotic patients receiving home oxygen therapy]

To investigate the clinical course of patients with silicosis receiving home oxygen therapy (HOT), we compared the clinical data of HOT patients with silicosis and those with other respiratory diseases, and of silicotic patients with HOT and those without HOT in our hospital. In 23 (34.3%) of 68 patients receiving HOT the underlying disease was silicosis. This figure differs from recent official statistics in Japan. In the patients with silicosis, the survival rate was lower than that of those with chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases or old pulmonary tuberculosis, but the degree of decrease in PaO2 was smaller, suggesting that the prognosis of silicotic patients may be mainly related to pulmonary hypertension and cor pulmonale. In silicotic patients, large opacities on chest X-ray were frequently observed in the patients with HOT compared to those without HOT, indicating that the presence of large opacities is an important factor influencing hypoxemia in silicotic patients.