Dear Editor, pulmonary silicosis is an important lung disease that is related to the occupational or environmental exposure. This problem is usually a new emerging lung disease in any setting with newly developed industries.[1] Thailand is an Indochina country with many new industries. The pulmonary silicosis becomes a new emerging disease in several areas of Thailand.[2] Beungkarn province is a Thai rural province with international border between Thailand and Laos. The distance between Bangkok and this province is 630 kilometers. The pulmonary silicosis becomes a new emerging lung disease that has just been detected in this country for a few years.
In the same setting, the local problematic lung disease is tuberculosis, which is a common Mycobacterial infection of lung. There are many risk populations for tuberculosis such as those with human immunodeficiency virus infection. Regarding pulmonary silicosis, there are some reports on its association with pulmonary tuberculosis.[3,4] Here, the authors analyzed the local data from available public epidemiological reports on tuberculosis active screening in Beungkarn province (http://bie.moph.go.th/e-insreport/file_report/2019-06-24-06-04-50-22.pdf). Adding to general screening for the risk population, the screening for tuberculosis among the new cases with pulmonary silicosis is also performed. Based on the available data on 2018, there were patients with pulmonary silicosis who received tuberculosis screening by X-ray investigation, sputum microbiology and molecular diagnostic test (Gene Xpert MTB/RIF assay). Of interest, the prevalence of tuberculosis is equal to 0%. Although tuberculosis is very common in our setting, there is still no detected tuberculosis among the patients with pulmonary silicosis. Nevertheless, this report is a preliminary report on this topic from Indochina. It can add to the previous only one report from Thailand that there are some patients with concurrent tuberculosis and silicosis.[5] Since pulmonary silico is an important problem coming with newly developed industries, the increased incidence of disease might be expected and the possible interrelationship with pulmonary tuberculosis, which is an endemic disease in Indochina should not be forgotten. A long term surveillance for both disease is necessary.
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