Silicosis: cluster in sandblasters--Texas, and occupational surveillance for silicosis.

In November 1988, a physician in west Texas reported three cases of silicosis in sandblasters to the Ector County Health Department (ECHD). One of the workers, a 34-year-old man, subsequently died with acute silicotic alveolar proteinosis. All three workers had been employed at a facility that sandblasted oil-field drilling pipes. Following the physician's report, in January 1989, the ECHD and the Environmental Epidemiology Program, Epidemiology Division, Texas Department of Health (TDH), contacted local physicians and identified seven additional sandblasters who had onset of silicosis since 1985.