Effects of relaxing therapies on patient's pain during percutaneous interventional radiology procedures

Background: Interventional radiology procedures in cancer patients cause stress and anxiety. Our objective was to relate our experience in the use of sophrology techniques during interventional radiology procedures and evaluate the effects on patient's pain and anxiety. Methods: We present a prospective observational study on 60 consecutive patients who underwent interventional radiology procedures in a context of oncologic management from September 2017 to March 2018. Forty-two patients were asked if they wished to benefit from the sophrology and hypnosis techniques during their procedure. A control group was also made including 18 patients. Anxiety level and pain were evaluated using the visual analog scale (VAS) before and during procedures. Results: We observed a significant decrease in anxiety experienced by patients during interventional radiology procedures compared to before procedures in the sophrology group (P=3.318E-08), and a level of anxiety and pain during gestures inferior to that of the control group (P=2.035E-06 and 7.03E-05 respectively). Conclusions: Relaxing therapies, such as sophrology and hypnosis, seems to be an interesting additional tool for the management of patients in interventional oncology, inducing a decrease of stress, pain, and anxiety in patients.