Life Cycle Assessment of Reusable and Disposable Cystoscopes: A Path to Greener Urological Procedures

The environmental impact of reusable and disposable devices is unclear; reuse is expected to reduce the carbon footprint, but the environmental impact of reprocessing of reusable devices is increasingly being questioned.

The aim was to provide the first rigorous life cycle assessment of reusable and disposable flexible cystoscopes.

We performed a life cycle assessment of reusable flexible cystoscopes and the aS4C single-use cystoscope (aScope; Ambu, Ballerup, Denmark). For the aScope, the complete lifespan of the scope was evaluated, including raw material extraction, material formulation, component production, product assembly, distribution, transportation after use, and final disposal. For reusable cystoscopes, we limited our analysis to their reprocessing, using a model consisting of standard high-level disinfection with peracetic acid. The environmental impact was evaluated by an independent third-party consulting company APESA (Technopole Hélioparc, Pau, France) dedicated to such risk assessments.

The environmental footprint of both cystoscopes was assessed using five environmental impact categories, namely, climate change, mineral resource depletion, ecotoxicity, acidification, and eutrophication. To perform the life cycle assessment, Simapro v9.3.3 software was used and the Ecoinvent v3.5 database was employed as the primary life cycle inventory database. A Monte Carlo analysis was used to account for the inherent uncertainty in life cycle inventory data and the variability in material and energy consumption for each type of flexible cystoscope.

By only comparing the disinfection reprocessing of reusable cystoscopes with the complete lifespan of the single-use cystoscope, the use of the aScope would allow a reduction of at least 33% in the climate change category, 50% in the mineral resources' depletion category, 51% in the ecotoxicity category, 71% in the acidification category, and 49% in the eutrophication category. Our results cannot be generalized to all health care facilities as we studied only one type of reprocessing method and one disposable flexible cystoscope.

Disinfection reprocessing of reusable cystoscopes was found to have a significantly larger environmental footprint and impact than the whole lifespan of the single-use cystoscope aScope.

Using a cradle-to-grave life cycle analysis, we showed that the environmental footprint of a flexible cystoscopy procedure can be reduced by using a disposable cystoscope instead of a reusable cystoscope.