First domestic experience of vr-intervention in endometriosis

Endometriosis is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by the presence of endometriosis-like tissues outside the uterus. This condition may be accompanied by psychosomatic and social discomfort, necessitating further research to understand the various factors that affect its development.

Objective: To present new data on the application of virtual reality (VR) technologies concerning the psychosomatic status of patients with endometriosis and highlight the dynamics of changes in the quality of life of women as a result of this intervention.

Materials and methods: This single-center prospective case series included four female patients diagnosed with endometriosis and/or adenomyosis. This represents the intermediate result of the 4-week VR intervention. The inclusion criteria were age between 18 and 49 years, a confirmed diagnosis of genital endometriosis of various locations through instrumental or histological diagnostic pathways, presence of chronic pelvic pain, absence of extragenital diseases, and consent to participate in the study.

Results: The reduction in anxiety and depression levels, along with decreased pain intensity, was confirmed by the changes in their condition as reported by the patients, coupled with improvements in quality of life observed in the study, indicating the potential for successful integration of virtual reality into multimodal treatment strategies for women with endometriosis.

Conclusion: This is the first domestic study to report the use of a medically supervised VR-solution designed to enhance psycho-emotional status and reduce pain in female patients with chronic pelvic pain associated with endometriosis. We hope that our experience can contribute to further research evaluating the effectiveness of VR-applications in this context and will facilitate comparisons of their effectiveness when combined with standard techniques using exclusively conservative approaches.