Neural Regeneration Research ›› 2024, Vol. 19 ›› Issue (10): 2310-2320.doi: 10.4103/1673-5374.391303

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Global trends in diabetic eye disease research from 2012 to 2021

Yuan Yuan1, Shangli Ji2, 3, Yali Song4, Zhaodi Che4, Lu Xiao4, Shibo Tang2, 3, *, §, Jia Xiao2, 3, 4, *, §   

  1. 1Aier School of Ophthalmology, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan Province, China; 2Changsha Aier Eye Hospital, Changsha, Hunan Province, China; 3Aier Eye Institute, Changsha, Hunan Province, China; 4Department of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China
  • Online:2024-10-15 Published:2024-01-29
  • Contact: Shibo Tang, MD, PhD, tangshibo@vip.163.com; Jia Xiao, PhD, edwinsiu@connect.hku.hk.
  • Supported by:
    This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 82122009 (to JX);Science Research Foundation of Aier Eye Hospital Group, No. AM2001D1 (to JX); and the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province, No. 2020JJ5002 (to SJ). None of the funding bodies play any role in the study other than to provide funding.

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Abstract: Diabetic eye disease refers to a group of eye complications that occur in diabetic patients and include diabetic retinopathy, diabetic macular edema, diabetic cataracts, and diabetic glaucoma. However, the global epidemiology of these conditions has not been well characterized. In this study, we collected information on diabetic eye disease-related research grants from seven representative countries––the United States, China, Japan, the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, and France––by searching for all global diabetic eye disease journal articles in the Web of Science and PubMed databases, all global registered clinical trials in the ClinicalTrials database, and new drugs approved by the United States, China, Japan, and EU agencies from 2012 to 2021. During this time period, diabetic retinopathy accounted for the vast majority (89.53%) of the 2288 government research grants that were funded to investigate diabetic eye disease, followed by diabetic macular edema (9.27%). The United States granted the most research funding for diabetic eye disease out of the seven countries assessed. The research objectives of grants focusing on diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema differed by country. Additionally, the United States was dominant in terms of research output, publishing 17.53% of global papers about diabetic eye disease and receiving 22.58% of total citations. The United States and the United Kingdom led international collaborations in research into diabetic eye disease. Of the 415 clinical trials that we identified, diabetic macular edema was the major disease that was targeted for drug development (58.19%). Approximately half of the trials (49.13%) pertained to angiogenesis. However, few drugs were approved for ophthalmic (40 out of 1830; 2.19%) and diabetic eye disease (3 out of 1830; 0.02%) applications. Our findings show that basic and translational research related to diabetic eye disease in the past decade has not been highly active, and has yielded few new treatment methods and newly approved drugs.

Key words: clinical trials, diabetic cataracts, diabetic eye disease, diabetic glaucoma, diabetic macular edema, diabetic retinopathy, drug development, global research, publication, research grant