“…Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and inflammatory cytokines are believed to be involved in the pathological process. Previous studies in patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) have shown that the intravitreal levels of VEGF [1,2,3,4,5,6,7], interleukin (IL)-6 [3,4], IL-8 [3,4], matrix metalloproteinase-9 [5], angiopoietin-2 [5], erythropoietin [6,8,9,10,11], platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) [12], endothelin-1 [7,13], monocyte chemotactic protein 1 (MCP-1) [3,4,8,14], transforming growth factor beta 1 [5], and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) [7] were elevated, while the levels of hepatocyte growth factor [15] and pigment epithelium-derived factor [16] were reduced.…”