Music therapy and radiation oncology: State of art and future directions

Abstract

Background: Effectiveness of music-based interventions (Music therapy, MT) on cancer patients' is a current research theme. Oncology patients may respond to radiation treatment (RT) with anxiety expressed as stress, fear, depression, and frustration.

Objectives: The aim of this review is to discuss the effectiveness of MT in patients undergoing RT.

Data sources: All English medical papers registered in the Web of Knowledge, PubMed, Google Scholar and ScienceDirect from March 1999 to March 2019.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria: We selected all the articles concerning the use of MT in pre-RT anxiety and distress during RT treatment.

Results: Out of 1184 articles selected, 132 abstracts were analyzed and 13 papers were finally evaluated for the current analysis, for a total of 946 participants.

Discussion: We investigated the role and the efficacy of MT for patients receiving RT and the future challenges in the clinical management of oncology patients before and during radiotherapy.