This study by the GENIE consortium also examined the erythropoietin gene (EPO) promoter, previously found associated (variant rs1617640; p = 2.76 × 10−11) in a total of 1618 diabetic ESRD patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy and 954 controls from three independent North American cohorts of European American ancestry [58]. This evidence concerns the gene EPO and proliferative diabetic retinopathy.