The following is a summary of “Effectiveness of Virtual Reality in Symptom Management of Cancer Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” published in the MAY 2023 issue of Pain Management by Wu, et al.

Despite increasing survival rates among cancer patients, they often face significant physical and psychological burdens due to the disease and its treatments. Virtual reality (VR)-based interventions have emerged as a potential approach to improving cancer patients’ physical and psychological symptoms and overall quality of life. For a study, researchers sought to assess the effects of VR-based interventions on anxiety, pain, depression, fear, distress, and quality of life in cancer patients.

A systematic search was conducted in several databases, including PubMed, Web of Science, CINAHL, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, Scopus, and APA PsycINFO, from inception to August 16, 2022. Strict inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied, and two independent reviewers selected the studies and extracted relevant data. The quality of the included studies was assessed using the Cochrane risk assessment tool, and data analysis was performed using RevMan 5.4 software.

A total of 12 studies, comprising 425 participants in the intervention group and 400 participants in the control group, were included in the final analysis. The results demonstrated significant differences between the VR and control groups in terms of anxiety (standard mean difference [SMD] = -0.83, 95% CI -1.25 to -0.42, P < 0.001), pain (SMD = -0.86, 95% CI -1.36 to -0.35, P < 0.001), depression (SMD = -0.46, 95% CI -0.74 to -0.18, P = 0.001), fear (mean difference [MD] = -0.82, 95% CI -1.60 to -0.03, P = 0.04), and distress (SMD = -1.16, 95% CI -1.96 to -0.37, P = 0.004). However, no significant difference was observed in quality of life (SMD = 1.01, 95% CI -0.67 to 2.70, P = 0.24).

VR-based interventions demonstrated effectiveness in improving physical and psychological symptoms among cancer patients. However, caution should be exercised in interpreting these results due to the limited number of studies, small sample sizes, and moderate to high heterogeneity. More rigorous, comprehensive, and high-quality randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were needed to validate the findings of this study further.

Source: jpsmjournal.com/article/S0885-3924(23)00053-2/fulltext