ESTRO 2025 - Abstract Book

S2232

Interdisciplinary – Global health

ESTRO 2025

Conclusion: Our results indicate a clear concern about the climate crisis among RT professionals. Although our results indicate that a significant proportion of RT professionals dislike online conferences, they believe that ESTRO should offer digital participation in conferences to help fight the climate crisis. Furthermore, a large proportion of RT professionals are willing to travel long distances by train to ESTRO conferences, with half of the respondents willing to travel more than 6 hours.

Keywords: Environmental sustainability, Carbon footprint

References: 1. Romanello, Marina et al. The 2024 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: facing record breaking threats from delayed action. The Lancet, Volume 404, Issue 10465, 1847 - 1896

2034

Digital Poster Green Radiotherapy: a focus on hypofractionation in prostate cancer. Is radiotherapy as green as we would like? A preliminary analysis on 100 patients Alice Porazzi 1 , Maria Giulia Vincini 1 , Mattia Zaffaroni 1 , Federico Mastroleo 1 , Cristiana Fodor 1 , Valerio Ricciardi 1 , Ernesto Damiani 2 , Roberto Orecchia 1 , Giulia Marvaso 1 , Barbara Alicja Jereczek-Fossa 1 1 IEO, European Institute of Oncology, IRCCS, IEO, European Institute of Oncology, IRCCS, Milan, Italy. 2 University of Milan, University of Milan, Milan, Italy Purpose/Objective: The concern about rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels is increasing. As healthcare has a large carbon footprint, providing more sustainable oncology practices is a call to action. Since more than half of cancer patients receive some form of radiation therapy (RT), understanding its potential environmental impact is essential. This exploratory study aims to quantify the carbon footprint of standard and hypofractionated treatment of prostate cancer (PCa) patients who underwent RT at IEO (IRCCS, Milan, Italy). Material/Methods: Activity data for 100 PCa patients treated with Trilogy linear accelerator were collected. Half of them received a normo-fractionated RT and half a hypo-fractionated RT. For each patient, the carbon footprint due to RT was calculated. Considered contributions were the ones due to patient travel, power consumption, pre-treatment imaging, gloves and paper consumption. Differences between normo- and hypofractionated treatments were analysed. Results: The total carbon footprint for the whole cohort was 108,089.67 kgCO 2 e. The median carbon footprint per patient was 700.58 kgCO 2 e for normo-fractionated treatments and 348.08 kgCO 2 e for hypo-fractionated treatments ( Figure 1 ). Detailed contributions to the carbon footprint are presented in Table 1 . Assuming that everyone traveled in an average-sized petrol car, the carbon footprint for patient travel accounted for 97% of the whole carbon footprint, with a median CO2e emissions per patient of 655.85 kgCO2e and 335.09 kgCO2e for standard- and hypo- fractionated treatment respectively. The energy used by the machine while in an idle state was the second largest proportion of the carbon footprint, accounting only for 1% of the total. CO2e emissions related to patient travel were significantly higher (p < .05) for the normo-fractionated treatments, as expected, supporting the idea that hypo-fractionated treatments can reduce the carbon footprint of RT.