More than half of the six million Americans with opioid use disorder (OUD) suffer from chronic pain, creating a negative spiral of poor health outcomes and increased illicit opioid use. A recent pilot study by Hector Perez, M.D., and colleagues at Albert Einstein College of Medicine strongly suggested that RelieVRx, an immersive mindfulness intervention involving virtual reality, can reduce both pain and cravings to use opioids in these individuals.

Dr. Perez has now received a five-year, $3.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to assess the intervention with a controlled clinical trial. The trial will randomize 192 participants with chronic pain and OUD to either twice-weekly RelieVRX or twice-weekly sham VR over a period of eight weeks at opioid treatment programs in the Bronx. The findings could change how opioid treatment programs deliver care to patients with OUD and chronic pain.

Dr. Perez is an associate professor of medicine at Einstein and an attending physician at Montefiore. (1R01DA060796-01)