Music-Based Interventions in Advanced Cancer Palliative Care: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials Identified Within the Broader Field of Art-Based Interventions
Systematic review and meta-analysis reports reduced pain intensity in advanced cancer palliative care, highlighting very low certainty of the overall evidence.
Key Points
To evaluate the efficacy of art- and music-based interventions on symptom burden and quality of life in adults with advanced cancer receiving palliative care.
Searched PubMed, MEDLINE (Ovid), Embase, Cochrane CENTRAL, WHO ICTRP, ClinicalTrials.gov, and Google Scholar through 2026 for randomized controlled trials comparing art-based interventions to standard care or active controls.
Identified 11 reports representing 9 randomized controlled trials (N=675), evaluating music-based interventions using the Cochrane RoB 2 tool and the GRADE approach.
Music-based interventions added to routine palliative care significantly reduced pain intensity compared with control conditions (SMD = −0.51; 95% CI: −0.98 to −0.03; p = 0.04; k = 3; n = 224; I2 = 67.69%).
Music-based care was associated with higher quality-of-life scores (SMD = 0.92; 95% CI: 0.59 to 1.24; p < 0.0001; k = 2; n = 168; I2 = 0%), but certainty of evidence was graded as very low.