[Current topics for occupational and environmental medicine and physiology in the U.S.A.--with special reference to occupational lung diseases].

Current topics for occupational and environmental medicine and physiology in the U.S.A., especially in the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and the University of California, San Francisco, are reviewed. Reduction of the rate for occupational lung diseases is one of the national objectives for occupational safety and health in the U.S.A., and NIOSH has rated it as the top disease of ten-leading work-related diseases and injuries. Current topics for occupational lung diseases--asbestosis, byssinosis, silicosis, coal worker's pneumoconiosis, lung cancer, and occupational asthma & hyperreactivity, and for pathophysiology of airway hyperreactiveness and pulmonary edema are discussed.