Something a bit different for any pharmacists in the network as well as oncologists — and well worth a look if you work in or alongside an aseptic unit. This paper by Chabane, Kroemer and colleagues, published in the Journal of Oncology Pharmacy Practice last year, is apparently the first study of its kind to do a full lifecycle assessment of the carbon footprint of a cytotoxic drug production unit in a hospital pharmacy setting.
The team assessed approximately 51,000 chemotherapy preparations across a full calendar year at a French university hospital, and found that — excluding the drugs themselves — the unit produced around 51.7 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year, roughly equivalent to five long-haul flights. The breakdown is where it gets interesting for anyone thinking about where to focus improvement efforts: staff transport was the single biggest contributor at 35.9% of emissions, followed by waste at 21.1%, single-use sterile medical devices at 18.1%, energy consumption at 9.3%, disposable PPE at 8.5%, and solvent bags and bottles at 7.1%. When the drugs themselves are included, the numbers are dominated by the antineoplastic agents — meaning that drug waste reduction and deprescribing are potentially the highest-impact actions. The authors suggest deprescribing of antineoplastic drugs, reducing staff transport through telecommuting or carpooling, and rethinking the production process to reduce waste as the priority areas for improvement.
Interesting to see this focused specifically on the pharmacy setting rather than the broader service. If any pharmacists are trying to make the case for sustainability work in your unit, this gives you a useful evidence base and a framework for doing your own assessment. Worth reading in full: PMID 39989272, J Oncol Pharm Pract 2025.
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