Table 4.

Clinical trials that do not support the role of statins in DR

Trial	Design	Follow-up	Drug	Results
Narang et al. [67]	Randomised control trial 30 patients	6 months	Atorvastatin	No relation between statin use and reduction in hard exudates, macular oedema or visual acuity in subjects with normal serum lipid levels.
Fried et al. [103]	Randomised control trial 39 patients	2 years	Simvastatin/diet versus diet alone	No difference in retinopathy status between the two groups.
Liinamaa et al. [104]	Case-control study	—	Statins	Statins are associated with significantly higher levels of VEGF in patients with PDR.
Collaborative Atorvastatin Diabetes Study CARDS Trial [105]	Randomised control trial 2838 subjects with Type 2 DM	3.9 years	Atorvastatin/placebo	No added benefits of statin in DR. Treatment group needed less laser but was not statistically significant.
Zhang et al. [106]	Case-control study 114 lipid- lowering agents users versus 570 controls	—	Statin and non-statin lipid-lowering agents	No association between statins use and DR.