{"id":470339,"date":"2026-02-15T15:49:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T15:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/470339\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T15:49:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T15:49:07","slug":"mass-research-shows-eye-doctors-on-frontlines-of-addiction-crisis-how","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/470339\/","title":{"rendered":"Mass. research shows eye doctors on frontlines of addiction crisis. How?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What do eye doctors have to do with drug addiction? New research from Massachusetts ophthalmologists<\/a> shows the profession can be an important intervention point for patients experiencing substance use disorder<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Researchers from Mass Eye and Ear, Harvard Medical School, Boston Children\u2019s Hospital, Mass General Hospital and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published a clinical study last month in the journal Ophthalmology Retina<\/a> demonstrating the two seemingly different health care issues \u2014 eye care and addiction \u2014 are actually closely intertwined.<\/p>\n

People who are injection drug users are at higher risk for eye infections, most often from bacteria or fungi that enter the bloodstream and reach the inside of the eye. Individuals suffering from the internal infection, called endogenous endophthalmitis, often present to emergency rooms with the vision-threatening disease.<\/p>\n

However, physicians often address the eye infection alone rather than the underlying substance use issue that caused it. <\/p>\n

Read more: Can AI predict \u2014 using smartphone data \u2014 when someone is going to relapse on opioids?<\/a><\/p>\n

The study argues that ophthalmologists \u2014 who specialize in advanced eye care, surgery and treatment of chronic diseases \u2014 \u201care on the frontlines of the ongoing opioid epidemic\u201d in that sense, and can be an important facilitator in connecting patients with addiction treatment.<\/p>\n

Over six years, researchers tracked 62 patients at Mass General Brigham who injected heroin, cocaine and fentanyl, determining \u201caddiction consult services provide potentially life-saving care for patients\u201d with endogenous endophthalmitis associated with injection drug use.<\/p>\n

Read more: Some call this bilingual eye doctor a hero. She says she\u2019s doing her job<\/a><\/p>\n

The study found nearly half of the patients with opioid use disorder being treated for the eye infection were eligible to initiate medication-assisted treatment. But medications were only initiated when an addiction consult occurred, highlighting how much more eye doctors responding to emergency rooms can offer patients beyond vision care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What do eye doctors have to do with drug addiction? New research from Massachusetts ophthalmologists shows the profession…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[218420,8757,97,252,253],"class_list":{"0":"post-470339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-eye-doctor","9":"tag-eyes","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-health-care","12":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}