Conclusions
multimodal chronic pelvic pain, chronic pelvic pain, pain
CHRONIC PAIN, ENDOMETRIOSIS
This is the first study to report the home use, without medical supervision, of a VR solution designed to reduce pain in patients suffering from chronic pelvic pain associated with endometriosis. Although the study has some limitations due to its conduct at patients’ homes and not in a hospitalized, controlled environment, the results clearly demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of VR software use without medical supervision. The decrease of analgesic use and of pain intensity observed in the study provides evidence for the integration of VR in multimodal chronic pelvic pain treatment strategies and may help to avoid the potential opioid dependence observed in the long-term treatment of chronic pain. Long-term data would enable collecting more information about the effect of Endocare on analgesics use. Aside from its efficacy on reducing pain intensity, patients’ lifestyle will play an important role, as taking a pill remains easier than performing a 20-minute VR session.Further studies are still needed to evaluate the efficacy of the VR software in other indications and to compare its efficacy versus traditional medications. Moreover, strategies should be implemented to increase adherence to the VR treatment as it may still be considered, despite its efficacy, as recreative and not therapeutic (eg, shorter exposition, various environments, new stimulation).We would like to thank all the study participants and the study staff for their involvement and for completing the study procedures, and Lucine’s employees for their support in the design, conduct, and statistical analyses of the study. We also warmly thank our scientific committee for their advice during product development.Conflicts of Interest: VE, AP, and MCE are employees of Lucine company, the developer of the software tested. The other authors have no conflicts to declare.CONSORT-eHEALTH checklist (V 1.6.1).