Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Ophthalmol. Nov 12, 2015; 5(4): 142-144
Published online Nov 12, 2015. doi: 10.5318/wjo.v5.i4.142
Curing diabetic retinopathy: Is a strategy emerging?
Michael W Stewart
Michael W Stewart, Department of Ophthalmology, Mayo Clinic Florida, Jacksonville, FL 32224, United States
Author contributions: Stewart MW solely contributed to this manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Michael W Stewart, MD has served on advisory boards for Allergan and Regeneron, as a consultant for Boehringer-Ingelheim, and his employer has received research support from Allergan and Regeneron.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Michael W Stewart, MD, Department of Ophthalmology, Mayo Clinic Florida, 4500 San Pablo Rd., Jacksonville, FL 32224, United States. stewart.michael@mayo.edu
Telephone: +1-904-9532232 Fax: +1-904-9537040
Received: February 22, 2015
Peer-review started: February 22, 2015
First decision: June 3, 2015
Revised: June 23, 2015
Accepted: August 13, 2015
Article in press: August 14, 2015
Published online: November 12, 2015
Processing time: 264 Days and 14.7 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Drugs that prevent the binding of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) produce greater gains in best corrected visual than can be achieved with laser photocoagulation. The recently completed pivotal phase III trials showed that regular injections of ranibizumab and aflibercept over 2 years also improved the severity of diabetic retinopathy (DR). Both drugs have now been approved for the treatment of DR in patients with diabetic macular edema (DME) thereby allowing physicians to consider VEGF inhibition to improve DR in patients with vision threatening DME.