A video game can help young cancer patients stick to their drug regimens and improve their recoveries, according to a new study.

Researchers studied 375 people with leukemia, lymphoma or other cancers at 34 sites in the U.S., Canada and Australia. There were all between 13 and 29 years old. The patients were randomly placed into two groups

Some were given a video game called Re-Mission meant to teach about cancer treatment by putting players inside the body of a patient. They control a robot that helps destroy cancer and direct a patient to take the proper medications to control disease and side effects. A control group was given an Indiana Jones game to play.

People in both groups said that they did a good job of sticking with their programs. But researchers found that patients who played Re-Mission actually did a better job of remembering to take their medications.

For example, patients on one kind of medicine took 62.3 percent of their doses if they were playing the teaching game. Those playing an unrelated commercial game took 52.5 percent of their doses.

Noncompliance with prescriptions can lead to complications in cancer treatment, as well as for other conditions, and the health industry has been looking for ways to keep people on their prescriptions.

Re-Mission was created by a nonprofit group called HopeLab.