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this article is based on previously conducted studies and does not involve any new studies of human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors .
data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study .
this article is distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution - noncommercial 4.0 international license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ ) , which permits any noncommercial use , distribution , and reproduction in any medium , provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s ) and the source , provide a link to the creative commons license , and indicate if changes were made .
diabetic retinopathy ( dr ) is a common microvascular complication 
 of diabetes mellitus ( dm ) and is considered as the leading cause of visual impairment in working - aged adults worldwide . 
 dyslipidemia has been associated with dr , but not with progression to the proliferative form of dr , although the exact role in the pathogenesis of dr and diabetic macular edema ( dme ) remains controversial . as a result 
 , a reasonable question arising is whether control of dyslipidemia may alter the course of dr . 
 statins do not appear to have an impact on dr progression . 
 on the other hand , fenofibrate has been found to significantly reduce the rate of progression of dr in patients with pre - existing mild dr , although it has no impact on patient s vision nor on the prevention of dr development in patients with type 2 dm without dr . 
 an interesting point that needs further evaluation is why patients without dr or those with severe dr appear to have no benefit from fenofibrate treatment .