Digistain had developed an innovative tumour-grading technology that enables the stratification of patients based on their risk of cancer recurrence, guiding the use of chemotherapy. They sought to understand the quantitative evidence on the reduction of carbon footprint resulting from decreased patient travel and improved logistics.
The Technology
Digistain utilises infrared spectrometry to analyse the composition of tumour biopsies, and predict the likelihood of cancer spreading. Infrared spectrometry is commonly used by chemists to deduce the chemical structure of large molecules. It is also used in various other fields of science and technology including chemical analysis, environmental monitoring, material characterisation, forensic analysis, and astronomical studies.
Using infrared spectrometry, Digistain captures a unique spectral signature from each biopsy and performs analysis on over 10,000 data points per biopsy to produce the Digistain Index.
Using this data, Digistain’s proprietary artificial intelligence applies a multivariate model that integrates key clinicopathological factors, such as age, tumor grade, tumor size, and lymph node status. It then identifies risk profiling patterns and computes an accurate risk score – the Digistain Prognostic Score.
The score provides clinicians with a single-digit number predicting the proliferation risk of sample cancer cells to guide diagnosis and adjuvant (post-surgery) chemotherapy decision-making.
Impact
An NIHR Patient Travel analysis, identified through the literature review, allowed us to quantify average CO2 emissions from a patient’s travel to the hospital. Our team constructed a CO2 Emission Saving model based on the original Budget Impact Analysis of the innovation. In this model, we assigned specific levels of CO2 emissions to each health state represented in the Markov
Model, accounting for the number of hospital appointments required for each state. Furthermore, the evaluation considered the CO2 emissions associated with the logistics, transportation, and storage conditions of tumour samples for the tumour profiling testing. We quantified the cumulative CO2 emissions savings over a 5-year period.
Outcomes
CO2 Emission Saving Analysis forecasts statistically significant potential CO2 savings cumulative over 5 years once the innovation is implemented as a substitute to the current care. A fully interactive model allowed the innovator to explore the results from different scenarios. We formulated recommendations for future studies on the data collection and verification of current assumptions.
“This modelling work completed by Health Tech Enterprise has helped us show the positive impact our innovation has in supporting the NHS Net Zero commitments.” Hemmel Amrania, CEO of Digistain
