Background: Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is one of the potential etiologies of blindness globally. It is featured by elevated vascular permeability, hemostatic abnormalities, retinal ischemia and neo angiogenesis. Theis study aim is to give better understanding for the genetic causes of DR and predict the impact of the polymorphism VEGF gene and DR occurrence.

Methods: This study is a case-control study, included 70 cases diagnosed as T2DM, the cases were allocated into 3 groups: Group (1): included 20 healthy participants as a control group. Group (2): included 20 type 2 diabetic (T2DM) cases without DR (NDR). Group (3): included 30 T2DM cases with DR. All cases of the studied groups were subjected to: full history taking, complete physical and clinical assessment, laboratory tests, and fundus examination. rs2010963 VEGF single nucleotide gene polymorphism was detected.

Results: AA gene, A allele was significantly dominant by (14.08 fold), (4.8 fold) in DR group as compared with control group (P = 0.001 and P = 0.0004 respectively). AA gene, A allele was significantly dominant by (5.9 fold), (2.9 fold) in DR group as compared with the NDR group (P = 0.015 and P = 0.01 respectively).

Conclusion: Early accurate diagnosis of diabetic retinopathy must be the major goal of the physician while facing these cases from the first second to avoid the probable dangerous sequences. We also concluded that VEGF gene polymorphisms had a role in developing diabetic retinopathy and they can be used as a genetic predictor for diabetic retinopathy.