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Assessment of the environmental impacts of medical devices: a review

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Abstract

Medical devices (MDs) are important health instruments, encompassing an enormous diversity of products, from simple ligatures to pacemakers, bone grafts or auxiliary life support machines. Despite the growing social and economic relevance of the MD industry in the health sector, its environmental problems have only recently started to be discussed. MDs companies worldwide are being pressed to assess the environmental impacts of their products by considering the full life cycle. These pressures are leading to the use of tools which promote fact-based environmental decision-making toward a more sustainable health sector. Life cycle assessment (LCA) and eco-design are well-known methods which may provide the MDs industrial sector with knowledge of the environmental impacts associated with their products and subsequently promote informed decisions leading to more sustainable materials, devices and services. This paper selects and reviews relevant studies using the methodology of LCA or eco-design, either applied in a singular basis or simulated, to access impacts of MDs. Seeking for a comparative analysis, this review is extended to LCA studies for the most used material in the MDs industry: the polymers. Results show that the number of studies is not vast, realizing the yet scarce use of either LCA and eco-design in the scientific literature for MDs. Nevertheless, it is observed that when applied either LCA and eco-deign can promote grounds for an increase in the environmental sustainability of MDs.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by: Base Funding—UIDB/00511/2020 of the Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy—LEPABE—funded by national funds through the FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC); UIDB/50006/2020 with funding from FCT/MCTES through national funds; Programa Operacional Regional do Norte (ON.2—O Novo Norte), QREN, FEDER with the project “iBone Therapies: Terapias inovadoras para a regeneração óssea,” ref. NORTE-01-0247-FEDER-003262, and by the program COMPETE—Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade, Projects PEst-OE/AGR/UI0211/2011 and PEst-C/EME/UI0285/2013 funding from FCT. This research was also supported by Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (P2020), Fundos Europeus Estruturais e de Investimento (FEEI) and by COMPETE 2020, from ANI—Projectos ID&T Empresas em Copromoção, Programas Operacionais POCI, by the project “insitu.Biomas—Reinvent biomanufacturing systems by using a usability approach for in situ clinic temporary implants fabrication” with the reference POCI-01-0247-FEDER-017771.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Departamento de Clínicas Veterinárias, Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas de Abel Salazar (ICBAS), Universidade Do Porto (UP), Rua de Jorge Viterbo Ferreira, no 228, 4050-313, Porto, Portugal

      Ana Catarina Sousa & Ana Collete Maurício

    2. Centro de Estudos de Ciência Animal (CECA), Instituto de Ciências, Tecnologias E Agroambiente da Universidade Do Porto (ICETA), Rua D. Manuel II, Apartado 55142, 4051-401, Porto, Portugal

      Ana Catarina Sousa & Ana Collete Maurício

    3. LEPABE - Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy, Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal

      Anabela Veiga

    4. REQUIMTE/LAQV – U. Porto – Porto/Portugal, Departamento de Engenharia Metalúrgica E Materiais, Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade Do Porto, Rua, Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal

      Maria Ascensão Lopes & José Domingos Santos

    5. LEPABE - Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy, Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal

      Belmira Neto

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    1. Ana Catarina Sousa
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    Ana Catarina Sousa and Anabela Veiga are equally contributed.

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    Sousa, A.C., Veiga, A., Maurício, A.C. et al. Assessment of the environmental impacts of medical devices: a review. Environ Dev Sustain 23, 9641–9666 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-020-01086-1

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