Who is at risk of silicosis in Australia?

Silica dust is produced when cutting, drilling, grinding, or sanding materials that contain crystalline silica — sandstone, granite, concrete, brick, and until the 2024 ban, engineered stone used in kitchen and bathroom benchtops. The highest-risk occupations are tunnelling, quarrying, mining, stonemasonry, and construction. Workers who fabricated or installed engineered stone benchtops are a particularly high-risk group and should discuss their exposure history with their GP regardless of whether they have symptoms.

What symptoms suggest silicosis and when should someone see a GP?

Early silicosis often has no symptoms. As disease progresses, a persistent cough, shortness of breath on exertion, and reduced exercise tolerance may develop — symptoms that are also common in many other respiratory and cardiovascular conditions. Anyone who has worked in a high-risk occupation and has any new respiratory symptoms should tell their GP about their occupational history. In Australia, silicosis is a notifiable disease, and GPs who identify or suspect it are required to notify the relevant state or territory authority.

A breath test for silicosis: catching lung disease before it's permanent

What just happened

Researchers at The Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane have begun testing a non-invasive method of detecting silicosis earlier than current clinical pathways allow — before the progressive, irreversible scarring of lung tissue that defines the disease’s trajectory has become entrenched.

The technology is called PExA — Particles in Exhaled Air. When a person breathes out, they release microscopic particles from the peripheral airways — the smallest branches of the lung. These particles carry proteins. The researchers’ hypothesis is that those proteins contain molecular signatures of early silicosis: inflammation and injury markers that appear before conventional imaging can detect significant structural damage.

The study design involves comparing proteins in exhaled breath particles with samples from bronchoalveolar lavage — a procedure that washes out cells from the lung’s interior for analysis — and blood biomarkers, taken from confirmed silicosis patients and healthy volunteers. Australia now has its first dedicated PExA machine, purchased through a $300,000 commitment from CPB Contractors, following an earlier period when the equipment was on loan.

Professor Dan Chambers, leading the research, put the clinical rationale simply: “This could allow us to identify disease much earlier — before serious damage occurs.”

That phrase carries a lot of weight. Silicosis is not a disease that gets better with treatment. There is no therapy that reverses the silica-induced fibrosis. The only intervention that meaningfully changes outcomes is stopping further exposure as early as possible — which means diagnosis matters enormously, and diagnosis currently happens far too late for many patients.

Both-and

Why this research matters

Silicosis was largely controlled in Australia during the second half of the twentieth century through workplace dust suppression in traditional industries like mining and quarrying. Its re-emergence in the 2010s and early 2020s was driven by a new source of exposure that the regulatory framework had not anticipated: engineered stone — the composite quartz material used for kitchen and bathroom benchtops that became a renovation standard from the 2000s onward.

Engineered stone contains up to 93% crystalline silica, far higher than natural stone. Cutting, grinding, and dry-polishing it without adequate respiratory protection generates extremely fine silica particles that penetrate deep into the lung. Workers in the engineered stone industry developed accelerated silicosis — a severe, rapid form of the disease — at ages in their twenties and thirties. The Australian government banned engineered stone fabrication and installation from July 2024, the first country in the world to do so.

The ban addresses future exposure. It does not undo the exposure already accumulated by workers in the industry over the preceding two decades. Many of those workers are now in their thirties and forties. Current silicosis screening relies on chest X-ray and high-resolution CT — tools that detect structural damage that has already occurred. Earlier detection, through biomarkers that precede visible scarring, is a clinically meaningful target.

Why this is still early-stage research

The PExA study is currently at the biomarker discovery phase. It is identifying whether distinguishable protein signatures exist in exhaled breath particles from silicosis patients compared with healthy controls. That is a necessary first step, not a clinical product. Before this becomes a workplace screening tool, the researchers need to demonstrate that the signatures are specific to silicosis rather than other lung conditions, that the test performs consistently across different exposure histories and disease stages, and that a portable version is feasible outside a research laboratory.

This work may take years to reach clinical or occupational health deployment. The $300,000 funding commitment from a single construction contractor is substantial for a research programme, and it signals industry recognition that the problem is real — but it is not a signal that a commercial product is imminent. Research at this stage frequently does not reach clinical translation, or does so in a form quite different from the original hypothesis.

The news is genuinely encouraging. It would be wrong to frame it as a near-term solution.

My two cents

If you or someone you care for has worked in engineered stone fabrication, tunnelling, underground mining, or high-dust construction — or even worked around those environments — and has not had a formal assessment of silica exposure risk, this week is a reasonable time to raise it with your GP.

The Respiratory Function Units at major hospitals in every state have silicosis assessment pathways. Your GP can refer for high-resolution CT and lung function testing if your occupational history warrants it. You do not need symptoms to pursue this — the point of early detection is that it happens before symptoms develop.

Australia’s engineered stone ban removes the most significant ongoing source of high-dose exposure, but the cohort of workers exposed before the ban is large. The clinical priority now is finding disease in those workers as early as possible, while the window for limiting further progression remains open.

The PExA research is a promising signal. What it tells us right now is that Australian institutions are investing in the right problem. The clinical tool, when it arrives, will be valuable. It is not here yet.

Verdict: maybe — important research direction, genuinely promising methodology, but several years from clinical deployment. The occupational health context around it is worth knowing about now.

Sources cited

Breath test study targets earlier silicosis diagnosis. Medical Republic, 6 August 2026. https://www.medicalrepublic.com.au/breath-test-study-targets-earlier-silicosis-diagnosis/127971
Silicosis — Safe Work Australia. https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/disease/silicosis
Engineered stone ban — Safe Work Australia. https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/engineered-stone