Anti-Inflammatory Therapy for Diabetic Retinopathy

Abstract

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is one of the most common complications of diabetes. This devastating disease is a leading cause of blindness in people of working age in industrialized countries and affects the daily lives of millions of people. Despite tight glycemic control, blood pressure control and lipid-lowering therapy, the number of DR patients keeps growing and therapeutic approaches are limited. Moreover, there are significant limitations and side effects associated with the current therapies. Thus, there is a great need for development of new strategies for prevention and treatment of DR. Studies have shown that DR has prominent features of chronic, subclinical inflammation. This article focuses on the role of inflammation in DR and summarizes the progress of studies of anti-inflammatory strategies for DR.

KEYWORDS::

• cytokine
• diabetic retinopathy
• inflammation
• leukostasis
• neovascularization
• NF-κB
• nitric oxide
• oxidative stress
• vessel degeneration
• vessel leakage

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This work was generously supported by the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation JDRF 10–2009–575 and the American Heart Association 11SDG4960005 (to Wenbo Zhang); by NIH Grants EY11766, EY04618 and VA Merit Award (to Ruth B Caldwell); and by NIH Grant HL70215 (to Robert W Caldwell). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work was generously supported by the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation JDRF 10–2009–575 and the American Heart Association 11SDG4960005 (to Wenbo Zhang); by NIH Grants EY11766, EY04618 and VA Merit Award (to Ruth B Caldwell); and by NIH Grant HL70215 (to Robert W Caldwell). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.