Silicosis is a permanent disease with no cure. Treatment options currently available focus on alleviating the symptoms and preventing any further progress of the condition. These include:

- Stopping further exposure to airborne silica, silica dust and other lung irritants, including tobacco smoking.

- Cough suppressants.

- Antibiotics for bacterial lung infection.

- TB prophylaxis for those with positive tuberculin skin test or IGRA blood test.

- Prolonged anti-tuberculosis (multi-drug regimen) for those with active TB.

- Chest physiotherapy to help the bronchial drainage of mucus.

- Oxygen administration to treat hypoxemia, if present.

- Bronchodilators to facilitate breathing.

- Lung transplantation to replace the damaged lung tissue is the most effective treatment, but is associated with severe risks of its own.

- For acute silicosis, bronchoalveolar lavage may alleviate symptoms, but does not decrease overall mortality.

Experimental treatments include:

- Inhalation of powdered aluminium, d-penicillamine and polyvinyl pyridine-N-oxide.

- Corticosteroid therapy.

- Chinese Herbal Kombucha

- The herbal extract tetrandrine may slow progression of silicosis.

The best way to prevent silicosis is to identify work-place activities that produce respirable crystalline silica dust and then to eliminate or control the dust ("primary prevention"). Water spray is often used where dust emanates. Dust can also be controlled through dry air filtering.

Following observations on industry workers in Lucknow (India), experiments on rats found that jaggery (a traditional sugar) had a preventive action against silicosis.

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis () is a word invented by the president of the National Puzzlers' League as a synonym for the disease known as silicosis. It is the longest word in the English language published in a dictionary, the "Oxford English Dictionary", which defines it as "an artificial long word said to mean a lung disease caused by inhaling very fine ash and sand dust."

Silicosis is a form of occupational lung disease caused by inhalation of crystalline silica dust, and is marked by inflammation and scarring in the form of nodular lesions in the upper lobes of the lungs. It is a type of pneumoconiosis.

Pneumoconiosis is an occupational lung disease and a restrictive lung disease caused by the inhalation of dust, often in mines and from agriculture.

In 2013, it resulted in 260,000 deaths, up from 251,000 deaths in 1990. Of these deaths, 46,000 were due to silicosis, 24,000 due to asbestosis and 25,000 due to coal workers pneumoconiosis.

Positive indications on patient assessment:

- Shortness of breath

- Chest X-ray may show a characteristic patchy, subpleural, bibasilar interstitial infiltrates or small cystic radiolucencies called honeycombing.

Pneumoconiosis in combination with multiple pulmonary rheumatoid nodules in rheumatoid arthritis patients is known as Caplan's syndrome.

This word was invented at the annual meeting of the National Puzzlers' League (N.P.L.) by its president Everett M. Smith. The word featured in the headline for an article published by the "New York Herald Tribune" on February 23, 1935, titled "Puzzlers Open 103rd Session Here by Recognizing 45-Letter Word":

Subsequently, the word was used in a puzzle book, "Bedside Manna", after which time, members of the N.P.L. campaigned to include the word in major dictionaries.

This 45-letter word, referred to as "P45", first appeared in the 1939 supplement to the "Merriam-Webster New International Dictionary, Second Edition".