What is the difference between simple and complicated black lung disease?

What is the difference between simple and complicated black lung disease?

Roy Artal (Pulmonologist and Critical Care Physician) gives expert video advice on: How does coal dust affect the lungs?; How is black lung disease prevented?; How common is black lung disease? and more...

Simple black lung disease is a type of condition where you have smaller, on the order of several millimeter-large, scars and nodules forming in the lungs. In complicated black lung disease, there's more progressive fibrosis, more progressive scarring, retraction of different parts of the lung, and some of these masses and lumps of inflammation can actually coalesce and form larger areas of masses within the lungs.