New Treatments for Diabetic Retinopathy

Diabetic retinopathy is the leading cause of blindness in the world. Strict control of blood sugar, blood pressure, laser therapy, pharmacotherapy and vitrectomy are of among common diabetic retinopathy treatments. Further studies to investigate the effect of protein kinase C inhibitors, angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, growth hormone and other proposed treatments for diabetic retinopathy are ongoing. Diabetic retinopathy is the most common micro-vascular complications of diabetes. Two important causes of visual loss in diabetic retinopathy are diabetic macular edema (DME) and proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR). Diabetic macular edema due to retinal blood barrier breakdown is caused by increased vascular permeability leading to increased thickness of the macula and fatty deposits. To avoid the mentioned complications, some standardized and approved treatment and also some new treatments which require further complementary investigation are proposed that they will be discussed in this article.