Saving lives, saving earth: hypofractionation and carbon footprint

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Oncology
• Radiotherapy

Background:

• The healthcare sector accounts for approximately 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
• The environmental impact of radiotherapy, a common cancer treatment, is not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the carbon footprint of radiotherapy treatments for breast cancer.
• To compare the environmental impact of different radiotherapy fractionation schedules.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of CO2 emissions from patient travel for 1959 breast cancer patients.
• Evaluation of treatment-associated carbon emissions for 60 randomly selected patients.
• Comparison of normofractionation (25-30 fractions), hypofractionation (15-18 fractions), and ultra-hypofractionation (5-6 fractions).

Main Results:

• A significant reduction in carbon emissions was observed with ultra-hypofractionation (5 fractions) compared to hypofractionation (15 fractions) (26.69kg vs 57.13kg CO2, p < 0.001).
• This reduction is equivalent to the electricity consumption of an average Spanish household for 12 days or a Madrid-Barcelona flight.

Conclusions:

• Patient travel constitutes the majority of the carbon footprint associated with radiotherapy.
• Hypofractionation presents a viable strategy for reducing the environmental impact of radiotherapy.