36 Virtual reality may help patients with cancer experience less pain and anxiety in the short term, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis published in Healthcare and Rehabilitation. Cancer-related pain and anxiety are common, distressing, and often difficult to manage. “Pain may make cancer treatment more challenging, while anxiety can make procedures and symptoms feel more overwhelming,” explains lead author Jiaojaio Zhang, a doctoral candidate at the School of Nursing, Fudan University. “VR can offer an immersive environment that may help patients shift attention away from pain or fear during treatment and care.” Pain and anxiety frequently co-occur and can intensify each other, affecting treatment adherence, recovery, and quality of life. Non-pharmacological approaches that can be delivered alongside standard care are of growing interest to clinicians and patients. Virtual reality technology creates computer-generated environments that users experience through head-mounted displays, aiming to divert attention from unpleasant sensations and procedures. This distraction mechanism has also been explored in other clinical settings, including procedural pain and perioperative anxiety, with encouraging early signals. The research team searched nine databases and included 13 trials involving 969 patients from eight countries, covering a range of cancer types and treatment stages. Control conditions typically involved usual care or non-immersive activities. VR was associated with reduced pain compared with control conditions across 12 studies, and it was also associated with reduced anxiety in seven studies. The findings suggest that VR may be particularly useful during medical procedures and among paediatric patients, where effects were more consistent. These are groups in which non-drug options are especially valued. The researchers cautioned that the current evidence is not definitive, as many studies had methodological limitations, VR interventions varied widely in content, duration, and delivery methods, and adverse events such as cybersickness were not reported consistently. These gaps mean the results should be interpreted with caution and cannot yet support routine, widespread adoption without further evidence. “Larger and better-designed trials are needed to understand which patients benefit most, how VR should be delivered, and how safe and acceptable it is in routine care,” Zhang says. The researchers concluded that VR should be considered a supportive strategy rather than a replacement for established pain and anxiety management. “Future studies should test standardised VR protocols, monitor adverse events, compare VR with other active distraction methods, and investigate how immersive experiences influence attention, emotion, and symptom perception,” Zhang adds. Broader research on digital health interventions in oncology continues to expand, with systematic reviews of related technologies similarly noting short-term improvements in psychological symptoms while calling for larger, more rigorous trials. Standardisation of protocols, longer-term follow-up, and head-to-head comparisons with other distraction techniques will be important next steps. As technology becomes more accessible and affordable, interest in immersive therapies may grow, while careful evaluation will be needed to determine whether promising innovations translate into meaningful benefits for people living with cancer.