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Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is of major scientific and socioeconomic interest in most of the industrialized countries due to increasing prevalence. This interest is reflected by a marked increase in the number of publications since the 1990 s. It is therefore difficult for a single author to obtain an overview of the topic. The total number of published items on DR was determined in the Web of Science database. All bibliometric data were collected for the period 1900 to 2008 (search term:"diabet* retinopath*" and "diabet* macul*"). A number of different scientometric methods were applied in accordance with the NewQIS protocol, e.g. state of the art visualisation techniques such as density equalising maps and network diagrams. A total of 15,624 publications were identified. The U. S. A. leads in the overall number of publications (4,689). The most productive and the most prolific institutions, authors and publications are all in the U. S. A. The University of Wisconsin (i.e. Ronald Klein and his wife Barbara Eden Kobrin Klein) have established an international network with a large number of institutions publishing important work. Nevertheless, many other important institutions can be identified, e.g. the Joslin Diabetes Center, which has published many articles on VEGF. The results reveal that the scientific interest on the topic DR is continuously increasing. International collaboration is of growing importance in this field.