Comprehensive multicriteria life cycle assessment of biopsy processing in a surgical pathology department

While recent studies have estimated the carbon footprint of surgical pathology, they did not consider the many other impacts this activity has on the environment. We aimed to estimate the environmental impacts of the preparation of hematoxylin-phloxine-saffron (HPS) staining, Congo red (CR) staining, and immunofluorescence (IF) staining for a biopsy analysis.

We used a comprehensive life cycle assessment methodology of 18 environmental indicators. Life cycle assessment is a standardized and robust method for comprehensively assessing the various environmental impacts of a process throughout its entire life cycle. All contributing items (eg, materials, reagents, electricity) within the different technical steps in the surgical pathology department were considered.

For the entire procedure (HPS + CR + IF), the electricity consumption of the cryostat for IF staining was the main contributing item for all indicators (from 19.4%-75.8%), except land use. The other most impactful contributing items were (1) single-use materials used during specimen grossing (second or third largest contributing item for 8 indicators), (2) electricity consumption during slide/block storage (second largest contributor for 6 indicators), (3) materials and consumables used during sample receipt (third largest contributor for 6 indicators), (4) materials used during cryostat section (third largest contributor for 6 indicators), and (5) reagents used during IF staining (second or third largest contributor for 5 indicators). Interestingly, for formalin fixation, the main environmental impacts were represented by global warming, fine particle matter formation, and human toxicity.

These data allow us to better understand the environmental impacts of our activities and to propose more pertinent eco-design solutions.