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Digital Intervention for Symptom Management in Cancer and Opioid Sparing Using Virtual Reality (DISCOVR) Study

NCT ID: NCT07228377

Last Updated: 2025-12-24

Study Results

Results pending

The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.

Basic Information

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Recruitment Status

RECRUITING

Clinical Phase

NA

Total Enrollment

25 participants

Study Classification

INTERVENTIONAL

Study Start Date

2025-12-01

Study Completion Date

2026-08-31

Brief Summary

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Patients living with cancer commonly have chronic pain due to the disease or to cancer treatments. Virtual reality, a new technology that immerses the user in pleasant, diverting, and exciting virtual environments, may lower chronic cancer pain to improve quality of life and complement need for pain medications like opioids. The investigators aim to learn from patients about the experience of cancer pain, develop a virtual reality prototype specific to cancer pain management, and test the feasibility and acceptability of this technology to improve the cancer pain experience.

Detailed Description

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Patients living with cancer commonly experience chronic pain, defined as pain lasting at least three months. While cancer pain management has traditionally focused on pharmacologic therapies, particularly opioids, pain experts, clinical guidelines, and patients living with cancer increasingly support the use of non-pharmacologic therapies (including mind-body modalities such as distraction, mindfulness, and cognitive behavioral therapy) to mitigate pain and potentially reduce pain medication needs. Virtual reality (VR), a rapidly evolving technology that immerses the user in pleasant, virtual environments, has been shown to lower different forms of acute and chronic pain syndromes, but has not been developed specifically to improve chronic cancer pain. The long-term goal of the investigators is to develop and disseminate a patient-centered, patient-driven VR intervention that significantly improves the chronic cancer pain experience. Towards this end, they propose a multi-phase project involving active patient stakeholder input and an iterative design process that will achieve the following Specific Aims: Aim 1 - to identify patient perceptions around chronic cancer pain experiences and management strategies; Aim 2 - to develop a highly feasible, acceptable, usable, safe VR prototype enabling patient-directed management of cancer pain; Aim 3 - to conduct a trial to assess prototype feasibility, acceptability, usability, and safety. Completion of this project will lead towards development of a scalable VR intervention to mitigate pain that has potential to dramatically improve quality of life and clinical outcomes in patients living with chronic cancer pain.

Conditions

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Cancer

Keywords

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cancer pain chronic pain opioid virtual reality technology

Study Design

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Allocation Method

NA

Intervention Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Primary Study Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Blinding Strategy

NONE

Study Groups

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Virtual reality pain therapy

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

virtual reality pain therapy

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

DISCOVR virtual reality pain therapy

Interventions

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virtual reality pain therapy

DISCOVR virtual reality pain therapy

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

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Inclusion Criteria

* age ≥18 years old
* living with active cancer diagnosis (any solid tumor type)
* report chronic cancer pain (≥3 months) with baseline severity moderate-severe (i.e., self-report pain score (SRPS) ≥4/10, where 0=no pain, 10=worst pain)
* prescribed chronic opioid therapies (may be long-acting formulations, short-acting formulations, or both)

Exclusion Criteria

* history of intractable nausea/vomiting, motion sickness, seizures/epilepsy, and/or cranial structure abnormalities preventing VR headset use
* moderate-severe pain of non-cancer etiology (e.g., chronic lumbago)
* enrolled in another pain study
* unable to complete surveys in English or Spanish.
Minimum Eligible Age

18 Years

Eligible Sex

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Sponsors

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National Cancer Institute (NCI)

NIH

Sponsor Role collaborator

Medstar Health Research Institute

OTHER

Sponsor Role lead

Responsible Party

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Responsibility Role SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

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Hunter Groninger, MD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Medstar Health Research Institute

Locations

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MedStar Georgetown Cancer Institute at MedStar Washington Hospital Center

Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States

Site Status RECRUITING

Countries

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United States

Central Contacts

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Hunter Groninger, MD

Role: CONTACT

Phone: 202-877-7445

Email: [email protected]

Eloisa Leiva

Role: CONTACT

Email: [email protected]

Facility Contacts

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Eloisa Leiva

Role: primary

Other Identifiers

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1R43CA302795-01A1

Identifier Type: NIH

Identifier Source: secondary_id

View Link

STUDY00010075

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id