S1454
Interdisciplinary - Other
ESTRO 2026
Manchester, United Kingdom. 3 Clinical Technology, Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, Taunton, United Kingdom. 4 Radiotherapy, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, Netherlands Purpose/Objective: Climate change and associated extreme weather will increasingly affect our health and wellbeing and healthcare can have a large carbon footprint, further exacerbating the problem. It is important to understand the carbon footprint of all aspects of healthcare so that measures can be taken to reduce them. However, the carbon footprint of advanced radiotherapy such as the MR-Linac is unknown. This study estimates the carbon footprint of MR-Linac treatments using measured activity data at one centre and compares it to similar data from another centre. Material/Methods: Data was collected for 11 different activities (as shown in Table 1) as part of the MR-Linac treatment workflow for 74 patients treated on The MR-Linac at Centre 1 over a 12 month period. Treatments were divided into those receiving 5-fractions and 20-fractions. Relevant conversion factors were applied to each element to determine the carbon footprint expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent (CO ₂ e).
Conclusion: UpRT remains limited in availability, although 78% of the professionals expressed willingness to use it. Patient comfort was identified as the main perceived benefit. Imaging emerged as both the primary obstacle to implementation and a key challenge once implemented. These findings highlight the need for further data to define the clinical role of upRT. References: 1. Volz L, Korte J, Martire MC, Zhang Y, Hardcastle N, Durante M, Kron T, Graeff C. Opportunities and challenges of upright patient positioning in radiotherapy. Phys Med Biol. 2024 Sep 12;69(18).2. https://enquete.lyon.unicancer.fr/index.php/832732?la ng=en3. Webster A, Fog LS, Hall E, van Rossum PSN, Nevens D, Montay-Gruel P, Franco P, Joyce E, Jornet N, Clark CH, Bertholet J. ESTRO guidelines for developing questionnaires in survey-based radiation oncology research. Clin Transl Radiat Oncol. 2024 Nov 24;51:100895. Keywords: upright radiotherapy, acceptability, perspectives Digital Poster Highlight 3814 Estimating the carbon footprint of MR-Linac treatments Rob Chuter 1,2 , Natalie Collins 2,3 , Casper Reijnen 4 , Erik van der Bijl 4 , Michael Wake 1 1 Radiotherapy Physics, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, United Kingdom. 2 Division of Cancer Sciences, The University of Manchester,
Similar activity data was recorded at another centre (Centre 2) with an MR-Linac to enable comparison. Results: The total estimated carbon footprint of five and twenty fractions of EBRT treatment on the MR-Linac at Centre 1 was 4,373 kgCO ₂ e and 4,764 kgCO ₂ e respectively. The largest contribution was the manufacturing, installation and commission process at 88% for five fractions and 80% for twenty fractions.
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