Experts say more information is needed to help respond to occupational lung disease.

“Currently, very little information is collected regarding actual cases of occupational lung diseases in Australia. Most assumptions about many occupational lung diseases are based on extrapolation from overseas data,” write the authors of a new review in the Medical Journal of Australia.

With the exception of mesothelioma, about which data is collected by the Australian Mesothelioma Registry, there is “minimal systematic collection of data” about occupational lung diseases, which also include work-related asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, obliterative bronchiolitis, interstitial lung diseases (such as asbestosis, silicosis and coal workers’ pneumoconiosis), asbestos-related lung diseases, and occupational lung cancer.

“Current data sources, such as workers’ compensation statistics, provide little insight into the problem and are insufficient to target prevention activities,” write the authors -  Dr Ryan Hoy, a respiratory physician and research fellow at Monash University’s Public Health and Preventive Medicine, and Associate Professor Fraser Brims, from Curtin Medical School and head of the Occupational and Respiratory Health Unit at the Institute for Respiratory Health at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth.

“There is a pressing need to gather systematic data on the causes, prevalence, incidence and impact of occupational lung diseases, such as through a national occupational disease registry.”

In another narrative review in the same journal, Professor Bill Musk from Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth writes that that rates of mesothelioma in Australia would probably remain high in global comparison for “some decades”.

“The numbers of new cases … have probably now reached their peak values in Australia, as in other most affected countries,” they state.

“The incidence of malignant mesothelioma commenced rising here in the 1960s, but the long latency between exposure to asbestos and the onset of disease (the risk increases continuously and exponentially after 10–15 years, with a mean latency of 30–40 years) means that the peak has only now been reached.

“Given the continuing legacy of asbestos-containing materials in many Australian homes and buildings, there is increasing concern about people being exposed to asbestos when performing domestic tasks and renovations, and it is likely that the elevated prevalence of malignant mesothelioma in Australia will persist for some decades.”