The Environmental Impact of Interventional Radiology: An Evaluation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from an Academic Interventional Radiology Practice

Environmental footprint of regular and intensive inpatient care in a large US hospital

“…Prior healthcare LCA studies have focused on comparing reusable and disposable medical equipment such as laryngoscopes, laryngeal mask airways, and dental burs, often showing that reusable medical equipment has lower environmental impacts (Sherman and Eckelman 2018;Unger and Landis 2014;Eckelman et al 2012). Researchers have also conducted LCAs for specific medical procedures such as childbirth (Campion et al 2012), hysterectomy (Thiel et al 2018(Thiel et al , 2014Power et al 2012), eye surgeries (Thiel et al 2017;Tauber et al 2019), plastic and other surgeries (Berner et al 2017;MacNeill et al 2017), dialysis (Piccoli and Mery 2017;Barraclough et al 2017;Chen et al 2016;Lim et al 2013;Connor et al 2011), radiology (Martin et al 2018;Chua et al 2021), and pathology (Gordon et al 2021). Studies at this level often report the largest share of emissions coming from single use and disposable supply production as well as energy use, though LCAs in low-resource setting often show more efficient resource utilization and variance in sources of emissions (Goel et al 2021;Steyn et al 2020).…”

Variability in personal protective equipment in cross-sectional interventional abdominal radiology practices

“…The healthcare industry is estimated to be responsible for 8% of the greenhouse gas emissions in the USA [ 7 ]. A recent analysis of greenhouse gas emissions from a tertiary care interventional radiology service found that the production and transportation of single-use supplies, including personal protective equipment, accounted as the second largest contributor to emitted carbon dioxide from the service [ 8 ]. Not unexpectedly, the survey results showed increased PPE use during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.…”

“…Many of the PPE recommendations have filtered into the practice of procedures performed outside of the operating room, such as US- and CT-guided procedures, commonly referred to as cross-sectional interventional radiology (CSIR) procedures [ 6 ]. The infection rate associated with CSIR procedures is far less than is cited for SSIs, likely due to the minimal invasiveness of a skin puncture a few millimeters in diameter; however, the financial cost and environmental impact associated with the use of PPE are considerable [ 7 , 8 ]. Multiple societies have published practice guidance for CSIR procedures, although there is no consensus standard addressing required PPE, and differing practices are observed anecdotally among various institutions [ 6 , 9 – 13 ].…”

Transitioning to Environmentally Sustainable, Climate-Smart Radiation Oncology Care

“…71 The development of such assessments specific to oncology and radiation therapy will be crucial in elucidating and reducing the environmental impact of our practices. LCAs could span the breadth of oncologic services or focus on different aspects of care such as quantifying environmental emissions from diagnostic and treatment machine energy use, 40,72,74 energy sources, 73 anesthetic gas, 67 operating room (OR) and procedural waste management, 40,64,71,74 and data storage (yet to be quantified). With more robust analyses, the environmental effect of each radiation modality (external beam radiation therapy compared with brachytherapy or proton therapy; or conventionally fractionated RT compared with hypofractionation) could be used as an additional metric when cancer outcomes are equivalent.…”