ESTRO 2024 - Abstract Book

S2823

Interdisciplinary - Health economics & health services research

ESTRO 2024

Material/Methods:

We included patients who received radiotherapy between 2017 and 2021, excluding 2020, and provided valid research consent. To calculate the carbon footprint, we converted daily fractionation into a 2-Gy-factor.

Patients were categorized based on their origin, distinguishing between those from the Lombardia region and those from outside. For patients from outside Lombardia, we estimated half of them with a carbon footprint of 140 Kg, equivalent to a return flight ticket from Rome to Milan. Assuming that the remaining half of the population used train transport (40 Kg), we calculated an average carbon footprint of 90 Kg per patient. The impact of transportation to and from the facility was not considered, given the minimal effect of public transport. For patients from Lombardia, we estimated the carbon footprint based on a hypothetical distance of 20 Km from our institute, considering the proximity of other radiation oncology departments, equal to 10 Kg of CO2 per journey by car (20 Kg for a round trip). Train travel was not factored in due to its negligible impact and was considered as 0. Taking the average trip journey into account, we calculated a carbon footprint of 10 Kg of CO2 per fraction.

Results:

We included a total of 6,306 patients in our study. Out of these, 2,952 patients (46.81%) were categorized as regional patients, with an average carbon footprint of 142.94 Kg of CO2 per treatment (interquartile range [IQR]: 13 - 397). The remaining patients were classified as non-regional, and their average carbon footprint was estimated to be 109.12 Kg of CO2 per treatment (IQR: 93 - 125.25).

In Table 1, we conducted an analysis of fractionations, presenting the data divided by extra-regional patients (E) and regional (R) patients for each year.

Conclusion:

Our study is a hypothetical attempt to make an estimation of the Carbon Footprint of the impact of a single treatment of Radiotherapy. We will focus to evaluate the real distance of the patients from our center and their CO2 produced, also depending on pre-treatment imaging and the kind of treatment to establish a real-life model that could be applied to assess the impact of the carbon footprint in radiation oncology.