S1455
Interdisciplinary - Other
ESTRO 2026
CTRO. 2024.7.Dupraz C, et al. The carbon footprint of external beam radiotherapy and its impact in health technology assessment. CTRO. 2024. Keywords: Carbon footprint, MR-Linac, Global Health
Digital Poster 3857 The role of digital healthcare technology within the cancer treatment pathway. Alan McWilliam 1,2 , Marianne Aznar 1,2 , Kathryn Banfill 3,1 , Alison Birtle 4,1 , Samuel Ingram 2,1 , Gareth Kitchen 5,6 , Zoe Merchant 7 , Sally Taylor 8,9 , Harriet Unsworth 10 , Anthony Wilson 11,12 1 Division of Cancer Science, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom. 2 Christie Medical Physics and Engineering, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, United Kingdom. 3 Clinical Oncology, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, United Kingdom. 4 Rosemere Cancer Centre, Lancashire Teaching Hospital, Preston, United Kingdom. 5 Division of Immunology, Immunity to Infection and Respiratory Medicine, University of Manchester, Manchetser, United Kingdom. 6 Department of Anaesthesia, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, United Kingdom. 7 North West Lung Centre, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, United Kingdom. 8 Christie Patient Centred Research, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, United Kingdom. 9 Division of Nursing Midwifery and Social Work, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom. 10 Cancer Research UK National Biomarker Centre, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom. 11 Department of Anaesthesia and Critical Care, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, United Kingdom. 12 Dept of Imaging,
The comparison with data recorded at Centre 2 is shown in Table 2. These show similar trends but the patient and staff travel are a lot lower at Centre 2. This is likely due to the differing travel methods and travel distances for patients (mean roundtrip: 117km Centre 1 and 34km Centre 2) and staff in the UK and Netherlands respectively.
Conclusion: The carbon footprint of treatments on the MR-Linac are around ten times higher than standard linacs, which were estimated at 489 kgCO ₂ e for standard linacs from a paper that had a similar scope6. This broadly agrees with a similar study that included an estimate of the carbon footprint of the MR-Linac7. This large impact is mostly due to the hight cost of the hardware and installation which is exacerbated by the low patient throughput, due to longer treatments, compared to a standard linacs . Whether this large footprint is offset by safely enabling hypo- and ultra- hypofractionation and improved patient outcomes is part of on-going work. References: 1.Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. Conversion factors by SIC code. 2025. 2.Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. 2025 Government Greenhouse Gas Conversion Factors for Company Reporting. 2025. 3.Evergreen Electrica. 2025.4.Bevan Commission, The gloves are off: Campaign reducing unnecessary non-sterile glove use. 2023. 5.Maloney, B., et al., The environmental footprint of single-use versus reusable cloths for clinical surface decontamination: a life cycle approach. 2022.6.Ali D, Piffoux M. Methodological guide for assessing the carbon footprint of external beam radiotherapy.
Informatics and Data Science, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
Purpose/Objective: Digital-technologies in cancer care comprise interconnected devices and systems, such as smartwatches, wearable sensors, and app-based health applications, to continuously monitor and collect real-time health data. These devices are predominantly designed for fitness and wellness markets and may not yet be optimised for clinical monitoring of cancer patients. This survey aims to identify potential use of digital-technology within the cancer pathway and identify key barriers to adoption. Material/Methods: A web-based cross-sectional questionnaire was designed following ESTRO guidelines [1] through a consensus expert process. In-house validation was followed by a pilot in five individuals from different academic and healthcare backgrounds. The
Made with FlippingBook - Share PDF online