Is medical treatment for diabetic retinopathy still an unreal dream?

Diabetic retinopathy is a highly specific vascular complication of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, estimated to be the most frequent cause of new cases of blindness in the working population of the Western world. The prevalence of retinopathy is strongly related to the duration of diabetes and glycemic control, even though a multifactorial pathogenesis should be probably considered in genetically susceptible subjects. Intensive diabetes management, with the goal of achieving near-normal glycemia, has been shown to prevent and/or delay the onset of diabetic retinopathy and laser photocoagulation has an established clinical efficacy in preventing visual loss. However, as laser scars always destroy the retinal anatomy permanently, a medical approach to nonproliferative retinopathy should be preferred if its clinical efficacy could be demonstrated. In this paper, recently published reports supporting this hypothesis are reviewed and their conclusions critically discussed.