Virtual Reality for Chemotherapy Patients

Oncologic Complications Clinical Trial

Official title: Virtual Reality as a Symptom Control Intervention for Women With Gynecologic Cancer Receiving Chemotherapy: A Pilot Proof of Concept Study

Status Withdrawn

Clinical Trial Summary

The purpose of this feasibility prospective study is to explore if the use of virtual reality as a distraction intervention for women with gynecologic cancer during chemotherapy administration reduces adverse symptoms. In this study, the treatment participants serve as their own control. The study will be performed over a 3 month period limit in order to assess implementation capability and symptom management of gynecologic cancer patients receiving chemotherapy treatment at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC).

Clinical Trial Description

Gynecologic cancer encompasses various conditions such as uterine, ovarian, cervical, peritoneal, fallopian tube, vaginal and vulvar cancers. Of these, uterine cancer is the top 4th cancer diagnosed and ovarian cancer the 5th deadliest in women.

Many of these patients require some form of chemotherapy administration during their treatment course. Chemotherapy is given at different stages of the treatment course with some patients receiving it prior to surgical intervention (neo-adjuvant), post-surgical intervention (adjuvant), and in the recurrent disease setting. Chemotherapy infusions can cause distressing side effects to the patients in the form of physical and also emotional/psychological effects, which may disrupt compliance to treatment protocols. Physical symptoms often begin during the administration of chemotherapy, such as nausea, vomiting, fatigue, pain, and anorexia. As a result, patients frequently experience psychological distress, including feelings of depression, helplessness, anxiety, and cognitive decline. These directly interfere with the patient's ability to perform activities of daily living and daily quality of life. The purpose of this study is to assess the effect of virtual reality (VR) sessions as a distraction intervention at time of chemotherapy infusion on symptom control.

VR creates an alternative, 'less stressful' environment, and is easy to use. Users of VR wear a head-mounted display with a close proximity screen that creates a sense of being transported into a 3-dimensional world. The technology can be individualized to be interactive, and allows for an immersion experience by engaging several senses simultaneously. Importantly, VR has become increasingly portable, immersive and inexpensive to adopt. VR does not require a subject's experience or competency prior to use in the clinical setting. VR has been used to assess and treat a wide variety of medical, surgical, psychiatric, and neurocognitive conditions including pain, addiction, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders, and stroke rehabilitation.

There have also been functional MRI studies demonstrating the effect of VR on the brain during receipt of painful stimuli. Multiple studies have demonstrated the benefit of VR as a distraction intervention for decreasing symptom distress, particularly in regards to anxiety, distress and fatigue, and have demonstrated that it is feasible to integrate in the chemotherapy setting for patients receiving treatments for various cancers, as well as when enduring medical procedures.

In summary, VR has been shown to be safe and effective in reducing emotional distress of patients undergoing chemotherapy. These studies are generally limited in small sample size, but all have shown to be safe and feasible. To date, the benefit of VR during chemotherapy infusion has not been evaluated in patients with gynecologic cancer. ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Oncologic Complications

• NCT number: NCT04723108
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: Columbia University
• Status: Withdrawn
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: June 2022
• Completion date: August 17, 2022