Definition and research guide
This page combines a MeSH definition, publication statistics and selected research abstracts. It is a starting point for reading the literature, not a medical textbook or a systematic evidence review.
Content available: 3 complete abstracts (673 words), 9 references. Full article text is not stored or reproduced here; follow the PMID, DOI or PMC links to read the original sources and their access terms.
Definition
Disease of the retina as a complication of diabetes mellitus. It is characterized by the progressive microvascular complications, such as aneurysm, interretinal edema, and intraocular pathologic neovascularization.
Definition: NLM Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) scope note (Public domain (U.S. National Library of Medicine); attribution requested). View the MeSH record.
Also known as: Diabetic Retinopathies; Retinopathies, Diabetic; Retinopathy, Diabetic.
Where it fits in the MeSH classification
- Broader topics
- Retinal Diseases; Diabetic Angiopathies
Related concepts
Research landscape
PubMed indexes 34,258 records tagged with the MeSH heading “Diabetic Retinopathy” (counts retrieved 2026-10-29). 9,739 of them (28.4%) were published from 2020 onward, and the busiest period so far is through 1999 with 9,777 records.
Reviews account for 4,530 records (13.2%) and meta-analyses for 537. Randomized controlled trials number 1,284 (3.7%) as a share of all records on the topic.
Show the data
| Period | Records |
|---|---|
| through 1999 | 9,777 |
| 2000-2009 | 5,514 |
| 2010-2019 | 9,228 |
| 2020 onward | 9,739 |
Publication-type chart data
| Type | Records | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Reviews | 4,530 | 13.2% |
| Meta-analyses | 537 | 1.6% |
| Randomized controlled trials | 1,284 | 3.7% |
Method: PubMed query "Diabetic Retinopathy"[MeSH Terms] with publication-type and date filters, retrieved 2026-10-29.
Reading the evidence in cardiovascular medicine
Cardiovascular medicine has an unusually large body of randomized trials, so the type of outcome matters: hard clinical events such as death, heart attack and stroke carry more weight than changes in blood pressure, cholesterol or imaging markers that only predict risk. Observational studies can show associations but are confounded by age, lifestyle and other illness. Check whether a result is about prevention or treatment, the baseline risk of participants, and the absolute rather than only the relative size of any benefit.
Evidence from open-access studies
These open-access studies come from PubMed’s best-match results for this heading (papers whose main topic it is), ranked here by citation count, with one recent addition. Each abstract is reproduced in full under its recorded open licence so that you can read the authors’ own words. They illustrate the literature; they are not a systematic summary of it. Citation counts measure attention, not reliability or clinical benefit.
| Study / authors | Year | Source label / design | Europe PMC citations | Licence / source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Molecular stress and neurovascular injury in the diabetic retina | 2026 | Review article Design not recorded in structured metadata | 5 | cc by PMID 41766669 · DOI · PMC12948430 |
| Pharmacological principles of intravitreal drug therapy and their implications for clinical practice: a primer for the ophthalmologist | 2026 | Review article Design not recorded in structured metadata | 3 | cc by PMID 42162254 · DOI · PMC13342646 |
| Plasma proteomic signatures of early retinal neurodegeneration in diabetes: A multi-cohort study | 2026 | Research article Design not recorded in structured metadata | 2 | cc by PMID 42228639 · DOI · PMC13229346 |
Molecular stress and neurovascular injury in the diabetic retina [1]
Abstract reading summary — source excerpts
- Opening excerpt
- Diabetic retinopathy (DR), the most common microvascular complication in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM), is a leading cause of vision loss worldwide.
- Closing excerpt
- We focus on how these processes influence, and are influenced by, genes regulated by the HIF family of transcription factors in glial, vascular, neuronal, and inflammatory cells, with the goal of identifying new therapeutic avenues for the prevention or early treatment of patients with this vision-threating disease.
- Interpretation limits
- Verbatim excerpts from the authors’ abstract; the closing excerpt may describe a finding, limitation or recommendation. Design, population, effect size and uncertainty have not been independently extracted or appraised. Read the complete abstract and linked paper before interpreting the findings.
Read complete abstract (200 words)
Diabetic retinopathy (DR), the most common microvascular complication in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM), is a leading cause of vision loss worldwide. Sustained hyperglycemia plays a central role in promoting DR. However, tight glycemic control does not prevent - and indeed sometimes worsens - DR, highlighting the importance of ongoing studies aimed at improving our understanding of this complex disease. Over the last few decades, the dogma that DR is a vascular disease that results in secondary neuronal injury has evolved, as emerging evidence suggests that neurodegeneration occurs in parallel with or prior to vascular cell injury in the retina of patients with DM. This has led to appreciation of DR as a neurovascular disease, characterized by microvascular injury and neurodegeneration, both of which contribute to vision loss. Here, we explore how molecular stress (i.e., glucose dysregulation, dysmetabolism, oxidative stress, and inflammation) promote retinal vascular cell and neuronal injury in patients with DM. We focus on how these processes influence, and are influenced by, genes regulated by the HIF family of transcription factors in glial, vascular, neuronal, and inflammatory cells, with the goal of identifying new therapeutic avenues for the prevention or early treatment of patients with this vision-threating disease.
Abstract reproduced from the open-access article under the recorded cc by licence; © the authors. PMID 41766669 · DOI · PMC12948430
Pharmacological principles of intravitreal drug therapy and their implications for clinical practice: a primer for the ophthalmologist [2]
Abstract reading summary — source excerpts
- Opening excerpt
- Intravitreal (IVT) anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) therapies are the standard of care for retinal diseases such as neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) and diabetic macular oedema (DMO).
- Closing excerpt
- This article reviews the key pharmacological properties of IVT anti-VEGF treatments for nAMD and DMO often referred to in the literature, and aims to elucidate their meaning and clinical relevance for managing retinal diseases.
- Interpretation limits
- Verbatim excerpts from the authors’ abstract; the closing excerpt may describe a finding, limitation or recommendation. Design, population, effect size and uncertainty have not been independently extracted or appraised. Read the complete abstract and linked paper before interpreting the findings.
Read complete abstract (208 words)
Intravitreal (IVT) anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) therapies are the standard of care for retinal diseases such as neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) and diabetic macular oedema (DMO). Despite the favourable efficacy and safety profiles of these therapies, decreasing the treatment burden is still an unmet need because frequent injections may be required over many years. The pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of IVT therapies, such as ocular half-life and clearance, can affect the duration of VEGF suppression and thus influence clinical outcomes. Although some properties are inherent to the drug molecule (such as molecular weight, binding affinity and potency) and cannot be altered without changing the structure of the molecule, other factors (such as the dose of the drug) can be increased, which may prolong VEGF suppression time in the eye and, in turn, may lead to a more durable effect of the drug. In addition to pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties, individual patient factors such as age, surgical history and disease status can also affect the pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and observed effectiveness of a drug. This article reviews the key pharmacological properties of IVT anti-VEGF treatments for nAMD and DMO often referred to in the literature, and aims to elucidate their meaning and clinical relevance for managing retinal diseases.
Abstract reproduced from the open-access article under the recorded cc by licence; © the authors. PMID 42162254 · DOI · PMC13342646
Plasma proteomic signatures of early retinal neurodegeneration in diabetes: A multi-cohort study [3]
Abstract reading summary — source excerpts
- Opening excerpt
- BackgroundRetinal neurodegeneration is an early and independent feature of diabetic retinal disease and has been proposed as a window into the systemic neural consequences of diabetes, yet accessible molecular biomarkers and individualized prediction tools remain scarce.
- Closing excerpt
- Pro-DRN substantially enhanced early risk stratification beyond conventional clinical factors and may support targeted screening and timely neuroprotective interventions, advancing molecularly guided strategies for diabetic eye disease prevention.
- Interpretation limits
- Verbatim excerpts from the authors’ abstract; the closing excerpt may describe a finding, limitation or recommendation. Design, population, effect size and uncertainty have not been independently extracted or appraised. Read the complete abstract and linked paper before interpreting the findings.
Read complete abstract (265 words)
BackgroundRetinal neurodegeneration is an early and independent feature of diabetic retinal disease and has been proposed as a window into the systemic neural consequences of diabetes, yet accessible molecular biomarkers and individualized prediction tools remain scarce. We aimed to identify circulating plasma protein signatures of diabetic retinal neurodegeneration (DRN) and to translate them into a clinically usable risk prediction system.Methods and findingsIn this multi-cohort prospective observational study, we integrated high-throughput plasma proteomics with longitudinal optical coherence tomography (OCT) in two independent populations. The discovery cohort comprised 1,492 participants had baseline plasma proteomics and OCT, and 1,218 were followed with repeated OCT over 6 years in Guangzhou Diabetic Eye Study (GDES). DRN was quantified by the annualized OCT-derived retinal nerve fiber layer thinning rate. In multivariable analyses adjusted for age, sex, smoking, systolic blood pressure, HbA1c, and diabetes duration, we identified 71 plasma proteins associated with development and progression of DRN. These proteins mapped onto pathways governing inflammatory immune recruitment, extracellular matrix remodeling, and microvascular homeostasis, providing a plausible biological basis for DRN. We developed a proteomics-based DRN model (Pro-DRN) using eight machine learning (ML) algorithms, including XGBoost and LightGBM. In the independent test set, Pro-DRN achieved a C-index of 0.860, rising to 0.908 when integrated with clinical variables. Compared with six conventional models, Pro-DRN improved discrimination (ΔC-index 0.137 to 0.159; all P ConclusionIn this multi-cohort study, we present a proteomics- and ML-based precision prediction system for DRN. Pro-DRN substantially enhanced early risk stratification beyond conventional clinical factors and may support targeted screening and timely neuroprotective interventions, advancing molecularly guided strategies for diabetic eye disease prevention.
Abstract reproduced from the open-access article under the recorded cc by licence; © the authors. PMID 42228639 · DOI · PMC13229346
Key reviews and meta-analyses
The most cited review-type papers among PubMed’s best-match results for this heading, listed with bibliographic details only. Follow the links for the full text and access terms.
- Research article Global Prevalence of Diabetic Retinopathy and Projection of Burden through 2045: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis [4]
- Research article Prevalence, risk factors and burden of diabetic retinopathy in China: a systematic review and meta-analysis [5]
- Research article Telemedicine for detecting diabetic retinopathy: a systematic review and meta-analysis [6]
- Research article Anti-vascular endothelial growth factor for diabetic macular oedema: a network meta-analysis [7]
- Research article Effects of RAS inhibitors on diabetic retinopathy: a systematic review and meta-analysis [8]
- Research article Prevalence of diabetic retinopathy in mainland China: a meta-analysis [9]
References
- Guo C, Sodhi A. Molecular stress and neurovascular injury in the diabetic retina. . 2026. PMID 41766669 · DOI · PMC12948430
- Ezzine S, Gale R, Bailey C, Patel PJ, Sivaprasad S, Keshk Z, et al.. Pharmacological principles of intravitreal drug therapy and their implications for clinical practice: a primer for the ophthalmologist. . 2026. PMID 42162254 · DOI · PMC13342646
- Li H, Zhu Z, Yang S, Cheng W, Tan S, Xin Z, et al.. Plasma proteomic signatures of early retinal neurodegeneration in diabetes: A multi-cohort study. . 2026. PMID 42228639 · DOI · PMC13229346
- Teo ZL, Tham YC, Yu M, Chee ML, Rim TH, Cheung N, et al.. Global Prevalence of Diabetic Retinopathy and Projection of Burden through 2045: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Ophthalmology. 2021. PMID 33940045 · DOI
- Song P, Yu J, Chan KY, Theodoratou E, Rudan I. Prevalence, risk factors and burden of diabetic retinopathy in China: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Glob Health. 2018. PMID 29899983 · DOI · PMC5997368
- Shi L, Wu H, Dong J, Jiang K, Lu X, Shi J. Telemedicine for detecting diabetic retinopathy: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Br J Ophthalmol. 2015. PMID 25563767 · DOI · PMC4453504
- Virgili G, Parravano M, Evans JR, Gordon I, Lucenteforte E. Anti-vascular endothelial growth factor for diabetic macular oedema: a network meta-analysis. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2018. PMID 30325017 · DOI · PMC6517135
- Wang B, Wang F, Zhang Y, Zhao SH, Zhao WJ, Yan SL, et al.. Effects of RAS inhibitors on diabetic retinopathy: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol. 2015. PMID 25660574 · DOI
- Liu L, Wu X, Liu L, Geng J, Yuan Z, Shan Z, et al.. Prevalence of diabetic retinopathy in mainland China: a meta-analysis. PLoS One. 2012. PMID 23028893 · DOI · PMC3447927
About this article
- Sources
- NLM Medical Subject Headings (definition, synonyms); NCBI PubMed (counts, identifiers); Europe PMC (open-access abstracts and citation counts).
- Verification
- Every reference was resolved against PubMed on 2026-10-31; title, year and DOI matched.
- Review state
- automated source verified; no human expert review has been recorded yet.
- Version
- 1, last updated 2026-10-29.
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Evidence strength
EvidenceHelix's computed view of the study designs behind this topic: how common meta-analyses, randomized trials and reviews are, how recent the literature is, and a plain-language reading. It describes the design mix of the literature. It is not a quality appraisal of any study, and it is not medical advice.