# Topics and Trends in Most Cited Retinal Diseases and Treatments Papers, Class of 2026

*Canonical URL: https://pri.pepkio.com/top-papers/retinal-diseases-and-treatments/2026*

## What topics and trends defined most-cited Retinal Diseases and Treatments research in the Class of 2026?

Diabetic retinopathy, anti-VEGF therapy, AMD, and diabetic macular edema define the Class of 2026 retinal cohort, with fundus imaging and OCT still prominent alongside inherited retinal degeneration and DR screening. DME, DR screening, and inherited disease rose sharply from Class of 2025, while CNN-based classification and standalone fundus-imaging studies receded among top-cited papers.

## At a glance

| Fact | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Field | Retinal Diseases and Treatments |
| Cohort label | Class of 2026 (2024 publications) |
| Papers analyzed | 7,789 |
| Papers ranked | 20 |
| Top topics in ranked papers | Diabetic retinopathy, Anti-VEGF therapy, Age-related macular degeneration, Diabetic macular edema, Fundus image |
| Publication window | Jan 1, 2024 – Dec 31, 2024 |
| Eligibility | Research articles; reviews excluded |
| Citation window | 18 months post-publication |
| 18m citation range | 43–153 |
| Data source | OpenAlex · Retrieved Jul 2026 |
| License | CC BY 4.0 |

## Rankings

| Rank | Title | Authors | Corresponding authors | Affiliation | Journal | 18m citations | DOI |
| ---: | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---: | --- |
| 1 | Integrated image-based deep learning and language models for primary diabetes care | Jiajia Li, Zhouyu Guan, Jing Wang, Carol Y Cheung, Yingfeng Zheng, Lee-Ling Lim, Cynthia Ciwei Lim, Paisan Ruamviboonsuk, Rajiv Raman, Leonor Corsino, Justin B Echouffo-Tcheugui, Andrea O Y Luk, Li Jia Chen, Xiaodong Sun, Haslina Hamzah, Qiang Wu, Xiangning Wang, Ruhan Liu, Ya Xing Wang, Tingli Chen, Xiao Zhang, Xiaolong Yang, Jun Yin, Jing Wan, Wei Du, Ten Cheer Quek, Jocelyn Hui Lin Goh, Dawei Yang, Xiaoyan Hu, Truong X Nguyen, Simon K H Szeto, Peranut Chotcomwongse, Rachid Malek, Nargiza Normatova, Nilufar Ibragimova, Ramyaa Srinivasan, Pingting Zhong, Wenyong Huang, Chenxin Deng, Lei Ruan, Cuntai Zhang, Chenxi Zhang, Yan Zhou, Chan Wu, Rongping Dai, Sky Wei Chee Koh, Adina Abdullah, Nicholas Ken Yoong Hee, Hong Chang Tan, Zhong Hong Liew, Carolyn Shan-Yeu Tien, Shih Ling Kao, Amanda Yuan Ling Lim, Shao Feng Mok, Lina Sun, Jing Gu, Liang Wu, Tingyao Li, Di Cheng, Zheyuan Wang, Yiming Qin, Ling Dai, Ziyao Meng, Jia Shu, Yuwei Lu, Nan Jiang, Tingting Hu, Shan Huang, Gengyou Huang, Shujie Yu, Dan Liu, Weizhi Ma, Minyi Guo, Xinping Guan, Xiaokang Yang, Covadonga Bascaran, Charles R Cleland, Yuqian Bao, Elif I Ekinci, Alicia Jenkins, Juliana C N Chan, Yong Mong Bee, Sobha Sivaprasad, Jonathan E Shaw, Rafael Simó, Pearse A Keane, Ching-Yu Cheng, Gavin Siew Wei Tan, Weiping Jia, Yih-Chung Tham, Huating Li, Bin Sheng, Tien Yin Wong | Li Jia Chen, Weiping Jia, Yih Chung Tham, Huating Li, Bin Sheng, Tien Yin Wong | Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China | Nature Medicine | 153 | 10.1038/s41591-024-03139-8 |
| 2 | A deep learning system for predicting time to progression of diabetic retinopathy | Ling Dai, Bin Sheng, Tingli Chen, Qiang Wu, Ruhan Liu, Chun Cai, Liang Wu, Dawei Yang, Haslina Hamzah, Yuexing Liu, Xiangning Wang, Zhouyu Guan, Shujie Yu, Tingyao Li, Ziqi Tang, Anran Ran, Haoxuan Che, Hao Chen, Yingfeng Zheng, Jia Shu, Shan Huang, Chan Wu, Shiqun Lin, Dan Liu, Jiajia Li, Zheyuan Wang, Ziyao Meng, Jie Shen, Xuhong Hou, Chenxin Deng, Lei Ruan, Feng Lu, Miaoli Chee, Ten Cheer Quek, Ramyaa Srinivasan, Rajiv Raman, Xiaodong Sun, Ya Xing Wang, Jiarui Wu, Hai Jin, Rongping Dai, Dinggang Shen, Xiaokang Yang, Minyi Guo, Cuntai Zhang, Carol Y Cheung, Gavin Siew Wei Tan, Yih-Chung Tham, Ching-Yu Cheng, Huating Li, Tien Yin Wong, Weiping Jia | Bin Sheng, Huating Li, Tien Yin Wong, Weiping Jia | Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China | Nature Medicine | 150 | 10.1038/s41591-023-02702-z |
| 3 | Gene Editing for <i>CEP290</i> -Associated Retinal Degeneration | Eric A Pierce, Tomas S Aleman, Kanishka T Jayasundera, Bright S Ashimatey, Keunpyo Kim, Alia Rashid, Michael C Jaskolka, Rene L Myers, Byron L Lam, Steven T Bailey, Jason I Comander, Andreas K Lauer, Albert M Maguire, Mark E Pennesi | Eric A Pierce | From the Ocular Genomics Institute, United States | New England Journal of Medicine | 118 | 10.1056/nejmoa2309915 |
| 4 | Intravitreal aflibercept 8 mg in neovascular age-related macular degeneration (PULSAR): 48-week results from a randomised, double-masked, non-inferiority, phase 3 trial | Paolo Lanzetta, Jean-François Korobelnik, Jeffrey S Heier, Sergio Leal, Frank G Holz, W Lloyd Clark, David Eichenbaum, Tomohiro Iida, Sun Xiaodong, Alyson J Berliner, Andrea Schulze, Thomas Schmelter, Ursula Schmidt-Ott, Xin Zhang, Robert Vitti, Karen W Chu, Kimberly Reed, Rohini Rao, Rafia Bhore, Yenchieh Cheng, Wei Sun, Boaz Hirshberg, George D Yancopoulos, Tien Y Wong, PULSAR Investigators | Jeffrey S. Heier | University of Udine, Italy | The Lancet | 116 | 10.1016/s0140-6736(24)00063-1 |
| 5 | Improved Support Vector Machine based on CNN-SVD for vision-threatening diabetic retinopathy detection and classification | Anas Bilal, Azhar Imran, Talha Imtiaz Baig, Xiaowen Liu, Haixia Long, Abdulkareem Alzahrani, Muhammad Shafiq | Anas Bilal, Azhar Imran, Talha Imtiaz Baig, Xiaowen Liu, Haixia Long, Abdulkareem Alzahrani, Muhammad Shafiq | Hainan Normal University, China | PLoS ONE | 84 | 10.1371/journal.pone.0295951 |
| 6 | OCTA-500: A retinal dataset for optical coherence tomography angiography study | Mingchao Li, Kun Huang, Qiuzhuo Xu, Jiadong Yang, Yuhan Zhang, Zexuan Ji, Keren Xie, Songtao Yuan, Qinghuai Liu, Qiang Chen | Songtao Yuan, Qiang Chen | Nanjing University of Science and Technology, China | Medical Image Analysis | 73 | 10.1016/j.media.2024.103092 |
| 7 | TENAYA and LUCERNE | Arshad M Khanani, Aachal Kotecha, Andrew Chang, Shih-Jen Chen, Youxin Chen, Robyn Guymer, Jeffrey S Heier, Frank G Holz, Tomohiro Iida, Jane A Ives, Jennifer I Lim, Hugh Lin, Stephan Michels, Carlos Quezada Ruiz, Ursula Schmidt-Erfurth, David Silverman, Rishi Singh, Balakumar Swaminathan, Jeffrey R Willis, Ramin Tadayoni, TENAYA and LUCERNE Investigators | Arshad M. Khanani | University of Nevada, Reno, United States | Ophthalmology | 71 | 10.1016/j.ophtha.2024.02.014 |
| 8 | OCTDL: Optical Coherence Tomography Dataset for Image-Based Deep Learning Methods | Mikhail Kulyabin, Aleksei Zhdanov, Anastasia Nikiforova, Andrey Stepichev, Anna Kuznetsova, Mikhail Ronkin, Vasilii Borisov, Alexander Bogachev, Sergey Korotkich, Paul A Constable, Andreas Maier | Mikhail Kulyabin | Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany | Scientific Data | 70 | 10.1038/s41597-024-03182-7 |
| 9 | Global burden of low vision and blindness due to age-related macular degeneration from 1990 to 2021 and projections for 2050 | Shiyan Zhang, Jianping Ren, Ruiting Chai, Shuang Yuan, Yinzhu Hao | Jianping Ren | Hangzhou Normal University, China | BMC Public Health | 70 | 10.1186/s12889-024-21047-x |
| 10 | Phenotyping and genotyping inherited retinal diseases: Molecular genetics, clinical and imaging features, and therapeutics of macular dystrophies, cone and cone-rod dystrophies, rod-cone dystrophies, Leber congenital amaurosis, and cone dysfunction syndromes | Michalis Georgiou, Anthony G Robson, Kaoru Fujinami, Thales A C de Guimarães, Yu Fujinami-Yokokawa, Malena Daich Varela, Nikolas Pontikos, Angelos Kalitzeos, Omar A Mahroo, Andrew R Webster, Michel Michaelides | Michel Michaelides | Moorfields Eye Hospital, United Kingdom | Progress in Retinal and Eye Research | 64 | 10.1016/j.preteyeres.2024.101244 |
| 11 | Oral Antioxidant and Lutein/Zeaxanthin Supplements Slow Geographic Atrophy Progression to the Fovea in Age-Related Macular Degeneration | Tiarnán D L Keenan, Elvira Agrón, Pearse A Keane, Amitha Domalpally, Emily Y Chew, Age-Related Eye Disease Study Research Group, Age-Related Eye Disease Study 2 Research Group | Tiarnán D L Keenan | National Institutes of Health, United States | Ophthalmology | 60 | 10.1016/j.ophtha.2024.07.014 |
| 12 | Gene therapy for neovascular age-related macular degeneration by subretinal delivery of RGX-314: a phase 1/2a dose-escalation study | Peter A Campochiaro, Robert Avery, David M Brown, Jeffrey S Heier, Allen C Ho, Stephen M Huddleston, Glenn J Jaffe, Arshad M Khanani, Stephen Pakola, Dante J Pieramici, Charles C Wykoff, Sherri Van Everen | Peter A. Campochiaro | Johns Hopkins University, United States | The Lancet | 58 | 10.1016/s0140-6736(24)00310-6 |
| 13 | Therapeutic targeting of cellular senescence in diabetic macular edema: preclinical and phase 1 trial results | Sergio Crespo-Garcia, Frédérik Fournier, Roberto Diaz-Marin, Sharon Klier, Derek Ragusa, Lauren Masaki, Gael Cagnone, Guillaume Blot, Ikhlas Hafiane, Agnieszka Dejda, Rana Rizk, Rachel Juneau, Manuel Buscarlet, Sarah Chorfi, Priyanka Patel, Pedro J Beltran, Jean-Sebastien Joyal, Flavio A Rezende, Masayuki Hata, Alex Nguyen, Lynne Sullivan, Jason Damiano, Ariel M Wilson, Frédérick A Mallette, Nathaniel E David, Anirvan Ghosh, Pamela R Tsuruda, Jamie Dananberg, Przemyslaw Sapieha | Przemysław Sapieha | University of Montreal, Canada | Nature Medicine | 57 | 10.1038/s41591-024-02802-4 |
| 14 | Effect of Fenofibrate on Progression of Diabetic Retinopathy | David Preiss, Jennifer Logue, Emily Sammons, Mohammed Zayed, Jonathan Emberson, Rachel Wade, Karl Wallendszus, Will Stevens, Rosanna Cretney, Simon Harding, Graham Leese, Gemma Currie, Jane Armitage | David Preiss | University of Oxford, United Kingdom | NEJM Evidence | 57 | 10.1056/evidoa2400179 |
| 15 | DRAC 2022: A public benchmark for diabetic retinopathy analysis on ultra-wide optical coherence tomography angiography images | Bo Qian, Hao Chen, Xiangning Wang, Zhouyu Guan, Tingyao Li, Yixiao Jin, Yilan Wu, Yang Wen, Haoxuan Che, Gitaek Kwon, Jaeyoung Kim, Sungjin Choi, Seoyoung Shin, Felix Krause, Markus Unterdechler, Junlin Hou, Rui Feng, Yihao Li, Mostafa El Habib Daho, Dawei Yang, Qiang Wu, Ping Zhang, Xiaokang Yang, Yiyu Cai, Gavin Siew Wei Tan, Carol Y Cheung, Weiping Jia, Huating Li, Yih Chung Tham, Tien Yin Wong, Bin Sheng | Huating Li, Yih Chung Tham, Tien Yin Wong, Bin Sheng | Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China | Patterns | 54 | 10.1016/j.patter.2024.100929 |
| 16 | Autonomous artificial intelligence increases screening and follow-up for diabetic retinopathy in youth: the ACCESS randomized control trial | Risa M Wolf, Roomasa Channa, T Y Alvin Liu, Anum Zehra, Lee Bromberger, Dhruva Patel, Ajaykarthik Ananthakrishnan, Elizabeth A Brown, Laura Prichett, Harold P Lehmann, Michael D Abramoff | Risa M. Wolf | Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, United States | Nature Communications | 52 | 10.1038/s41467-023-44676-z |
| 17 | Intravitreal aflibercept 8 mg in diabetic macular oedema (PHOTON): 48-week results from a randomised, double-masked, non-inferiority, phase 2/3 trial | David M Brown, David S Boyer, Diana V Do, Charles C Wykoff, Taiji Sakamoto, Peter Win, Sunir Joshi, Hani Salehi-Had, András Seres, Alyson J Berliner, Sergio Leal, Robert Vitti, Karen W Chu, Kimberly Reed, Rohini Rao, Yenchieh Cheng, Wei Sun, Delia Voronca, Rafia Bhore, Ursula Schmidt-Ott, Thomas Schmelter, Andrea Schulze, Xin Zhang, Boaz Hirshberg, George D Yancopoulos, Sobha Sivaprasad, PHOTON Investigators | Sobha Sivaprasad | Retina Consultants of Texas, United States | The Lancet | 49 | 10.1016/s0140-6736(23)02577-1 |
| 18 | Age-Related Macular Degeneration, a Mathematically Tractable Disease | Christine A Curcio, Deepayan Kar, Cynthia Owsley, Kenneth R Sloan, Thomas Ach | Christine A. Curcio | University of Alabama at Birmingham, United States | Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science | 47 | 10.1167/iovs.65.3.4 |
| 19 | Severe Intraocular Inflammation Following Intravitreal Faricimab | Loka Thangamathesvaran, Jun Kong, Susan B Bressler, Mandeep Singh, Adam S Wenick, Adrienne W Scott, J Fernando Arévalo, Neil M Bressler | Neil M. Bressler | Johns Hopkins University, United States | JAMA Ophthalmology | 43 | 10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2024.0530 |
| 20 | Glaucoma diagnosis from fundus images using modified Gauss-Kuzmin-distribution-based Gabor features in 2D-FAWT | Rajneesh Kumar Patel, Siddharth Singh Chouhan, Hemraj Shobharam Lamkuche, Pranshu Pranjal | Siddharth Singh Chouhan | VIT Bhopal University, India | Computers & Electrical Engineering | 43 | 10.1016/j.compeleceng.2024.109538 |

## Topic trends

### What Topics Define the Class of 2026?

The informative word cloud across the 50 highest 18-month-cited retinal diseases and treatments papers reveals a field anchored in treatable retinal disease, anti-VEGF therapy evaluation, and multimodal imaging—not standalone deep-learning classification. Diabetic retinopathy leads at 12 of 50 papers (normalized frequency 0.24), followed by anti-VEGF therapy (11 papers, 0.22). Age-related macular degeneration, diabetic macular edema, and fundus image each appear in 9 papers (0.18), underscoring how disease entities, therapy trials, and structural imaging remain tightly coupled in influential 2024 work. Neovascular AMD and faricimab (8 papers each, 0.16) highlight sustained interest in wet AMD and next-generation VEGF-pathway agents. Mid-sized terms cluster around trial endpoints and delivery—best-corrected visual acuity, optical coherence tomography, aflibercept, intravitreal injection, and extended dosing interval—alongside diabetic retinopathy screening, inherited retinal degeneration, and geographic atrophy. Convolutional neural network–based classification appears but at reduced prominence (4 papers, 0.08) after informativeness filtering, while smaller visible terms—including diabetic retinopathy prediction, retinal pigment epithelium, photoreceptors, Leber congenital amaurosis, and angiopoietin-2 inhibition—signal growing citation weight for inherited disease, gene therapy, and bispecific anti-VEGF mechanisms alongside traditional trial designs.

*Leading research themes*

### How Did Topics Shift from the Class of 2025 to the Class of 2026?

Comparing normalized concept frequencies between the Class of 2025 (2023 publications) and Class of 2026 (2024 publications) cohorts shows a reorientation of early-high-impact research priorities within retinal medicine. Diabetic macular edema exhibited the largest gain (+0.12 normalized frequency; 3 versus 9 papers), followed by diabetic retinopathy prediction (+0.08; 0 versus 4), diabetic retinopathy screening (+0.08; 2 versus 6), and inherited retinal degeneration (+0.08; 2 versus 6). The topic evolution card underscores that Class of 2026 bars extend furthest for diabetic retinopathy, anti-VEGF therapy, diabetic macular edema, age-related macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy screening—topics aligned with expanded anti-VEGF trial programs, inherited disease gene therapy, and population screening infrastructure. Conversely, fundus image showed the steepest decline (−0.24; 21 versus 9 papers), reflecting reduced dominance of general fundus-imaging papers among top-cited work. Convolutional neural network–based diabetic retinopathy classification (−0.14), intravitreal injection framing (−0.08), and diabetic retinopathy classification (−0.08) also receded, alongside modest drops for complement inhibition and neovascular AMD. Together, these shifts suggest that the most-cited 2024 papers emphasize disease-specific therapy trials, inherited retinal disease, and clinical endpoints over standalone deep-learning classification and broad imaging dataset studies.

*How topics shifted year over year*

## Cite this ranking

```
Pepkio Research Index (PRI). Topics and Trends in Most Cited Retinal Diseases and Treatments Papers, Class of 2026. https://pri.pepkio.com/top-papers/retinal-diseases-and-treatments/2026. Accessed 2026-07-14.

Zheng Su, Tinsley Li, Thematic Shifts in Early-High-Impact Cancer Genomics and Diagnostics Research: A Bibliometric and Semantic Analysis. bioRxiv 2026.07.04.736459; doi: https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.07.04.736459
```