Respiratory and sleep medicine
Respiratory medicine: specific issues
How ageing, obesity, tobacco, asbestos, silica and bushfire smoke change the lungs, how the heart and lungs interact, respiratory disease and drugs in pregnancy, and end-of-life care in chronic lung disease, with the Australian rules, registries and numbers.
Tier 2Topic overview
Written with AI assistance and fact-checked against the sources below. For exam study, not clinical decisions. How notes are made
At a glance
- Ageing stiffens the chest wall and loosens the lung. FEV1/FVC falls normally, so the fixed 0.7 ratio over-calls COPD in older people.
- Obesity reduces ERV and FRC first. Think of obesity hypoventilation when bicarbonate is high.
- Tobacco, asbestos and silica remain the big Australian exposures. Engineered stone has been banned since 1 July 2024, and lung cancer screening began 1 July 2025.
Loading the rest of the note…
Finished reading?
Sources
- The COPD-X Plan: Australian and New Zealand guidelines for the management of chronic obstructive pulmonary diseaseAU/NZLung Foundation Australia and Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand, V2.78, December 2025
- Therapeutic Guidelines: Palliative CareAU/NZTherapeutic Guidelines Limited (eTG complete), current eTG edition (version not verified)
- Work-related asthma: a position paper from the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand and the National Asthma Council AustraliaAU/NZRespirology, 2020
- Respiratory surveillance for coal mine dust and artificial stone exposed workers in Australia and New Zealand: a position statement from the Thoracic Society of Australia and New ZealandAU/NZRespirology, 2020
- Engineered stone prohibitionAU/NZSafe Work Australia, 2024 (prohibition from 1 July 2024)
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework: measure 2.15 tobacco useAU/NZAustralian Institute of Health and Welfare and National Indigenous Australians Agency, page checked November 2026 (latest data 2018-19)
- National Lung Cancer Screening ProgramAU/NZAustralian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, program started 1 July 2025
- Vaping laws (pharmacy supply of therapeutic vapes from 1 July and 1 October 2024)AU/NZAustralian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, 2024
- Unprecedented smoke-related health burden associated with the 2019-20 bushfires in eastern Australia (Borchers Arriagada N et al. Med J Aust 2020;213:282-283)AU/NZMedical Journal of Australia, 2020
- Australian categorisation system for prescribing medicines in pregnancy, and Prescribing medicines in pregnancy databaseAU/NZTherapeutic Goods Administration, database checked November 2026
- Global, race-neutral reference equations and pulmonary function test interpretation (Moffett AT et al. JAMA Netw Open 2023;6:e2316174)JAMA Network Open, 2023
- Last updated
- 14 November 2026
What changed
- 14 November 2026 Personal emails, About story and Australian-style copy