Assessing the association between GLP-1 receptor agonist use and diabetic retinopathy through the FDA adverse event reporting system

Recently, the Trial to Evaluate Cardiovascular and Other Long-term Outcomes With Semaglutide in Subjects With Type 2 Diabetes (SUSTAIN-6) suggested that semaglutide may increase the risk for diabetic retinopathy (DR) adverse events (AEs) compared with placebo. Other trials of glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RA) showed a numerically higher incidence of DR AEs for liraglutide but not exenatide. However, these trials did not systematically assess DR. Our population-based cohort study of older U.S. adults suggested that GLP-1RA use for approximately 1 year does not increase DR risk. As current evidence on GLP-1RA–associated DR risk is still limited, we conducted a disproportionality analysis of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) database to examine the association between GLP-1RA and DR events