[Results of an analysis of age and cause of death in 1,000 silicosis autopsies in the Thüringen region].

The authors have studied the clinical and autopsy records, including lung roentgenograms, of 1,000 silicotics deceased in the Thuringian districts of Gera, Erfurt and Suhl over the past 30 years. The main points of the analysis are clinical-pathological-anatomical comparisons in pneumoconiosis diagnoses and the identification of the cause of death. The roentgenological findings were found to be largely in correspondence with the pathological-anatomical ones. Surprisingly, the mean life span of male pneumoconiosis patients (71.3 years) is more than 2 years above the average life expectancy in the GDR, whereas the mean life span of the female patients differs little from the average GDR figure. 60.7 percent of the patients died of the sequelae of pneumoconiosis.