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Virtual reality often reduced anxiety and pain during breast cancer care

Across 14 studies, 9 of 11 anxiety studies and 3 of 5 pain studies reported significant improvement with virtual reality.

RadOncToday · ·1 min read

KEY POINTS

  • This systematic review included 14 studies with 761 participants evaluating immersive VR in women with breast cancer across chemotherapy, radiotherapy preparation and delivery, postoperative rehabilitation, survivorship, metastatic disease and painful procedures.
  • VR interventions were highly heterogeneous, including virtual nature, interactive distraction, radiotherapy education, game-based rehabilitation and psychological interventions. Session duration generally ranged from around 10–30 minutes, but frequency ranged from a single exposure to repeated multi-week programs.
  • Of the 11 studies assessing anxiety, 9 reported statistically significant improvement with VR. Of the 5 studies evaluating pain, 3 reported significant reductions, while two found no significant benefit.
  • One particularly relevant randomized RT study included 196 breast cancer patients receiving VR-based education before treatment. Immediate anxiety reduction was greater with VR than standard explanation on both APAIS (26.0% vs 8.1%) and STAI (16.1% vs 8.5%).
  • In an 80-patient randomized study conducted during painful treatment procedures, pain scores were 0.33 vs 4.84 and anxiety scores 37.68 vs 50.13 with VR versus control (both p<0.001), illustrating the larger effects reported in procedural-distraction settings.
  • Not every study was positive. A randomized crossover analysis in metastatic breast cancer found no significant overall anxiety reduction (mean difference 0.33, 95% CI −0.21 to 0.87; p=0.23), emphasizing that efficacy may depend on context, content and outcome timing.
  • No meta-analysis was performed because of major heterogeneity in intervention design and outcome measures. Most randomized studies had some risk-of-bias concerns, while several non-randomized studies had moderate or high methodological concerns; only one study formally reported adherence to VR use.

CLINICAL TAKEAWAY

VR is a promising low-risk adjunct for anxiety management around breast cancer treatment, including RT education and treatment sessions, and may also reduce pain in selected settings. The evidence is supportive rather than definitive: there is currently no validated VR content, duration or treatment schedule that can be considered standard care.

SOURCE

Technical Innovations & Patient Support in Radiation Oncology