ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Pulmonary Medicine
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1643688
Virtual Reality-Assisted Pulmonary Rehabilitation Enhances Early Lung Function Recovery After Thoracoscopic Surgery in Lung Cancer Patients: A Non-Concurrent Controlled Study
Provisionally accepted
- 1Shanghai General Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
- 2Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Nursing, Shanghai, China
- 3School of Medicine, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
- 4Shanghai Tenth People’s Hospital, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Objective: To investigate the clinical effectiveness of pulmonary rehabilitation health education and respiratory function training based on virtual reality (VR) technology in promoting early postoperative pulmonary function recovery in patients undergoing thoracoscopic surgery for lung cancer.Methods: A single-center, non-concurrent, pre-post controlled study was conducted. Ninety-five patients who underwent thoracoscopic radical resection of lung cancer between June 2023 and February 2024 were assigned to the control group and received routine postoperative respiratory function education. Another 95 patients admitted between March and December 2024 were assigned to the intervention group and received VR-based health education combined with training guidance. The intervention lasted for 3 days. Outcomes compared between groups included pulmonary function recovery, time to extubation, incidence of postoperative pulmonary complications, satisfaction with health education, and safety of the intervention.Results:The compliance rate in the intervention group was 94.74%, significantly higher than that in the control group (85.26%) (P < 0.05). On postoperative day 3, FVC%, FEV₁%, MVV, and MVV% were significantly better in the intervention group compared to the control group (P < 0.01). The time to extubation was also significantly shorter in the intervention group (P < 0.01). There was no significant difference in the incidence of pulmonary complications within 7 days after surgery between the two groups (P > 0.05). Patient satisfaction in the intervention group was 91.11%, significantly higher than 72.84% in the control group (P < 0.01). Three mild adverse events were reported during the VR intervention, which were resolved after temporary suspension of the session and did not affect the completion of the intervention.Conclusion: VR-based health education combined with postoperative respiratory function training effectively improves patient compliance, promotes early pulmonary function recovery, shortens extubation time, and enhances patient satisfaction. It is clinically safe and feasible and holds promise for broader application in postoperative nursing care for lung cancer patients.
Keywords: lung cancer, virtual reality, Health Education, Pulmonary function training, postoperative rehabilitation
Received: 09 Jun 2025; Accepted: 17 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Jiang, Wang, Guan, Zhou, Cheng, Wan and Fang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Fang Fang, Shanghai General Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.