Retinal immune profiling for systemic hypoxia has not previously been reported prior to our study, but upregulation of immune molecules such as VEGF and IL-1 has been well-reported in retinal vascular diseases associated with hypoxia, such as proliferative diabetic retinopathy [59, 60], macular edema associated with branch retinal vein occlusion [61] and central retina vein occlusion [62–64]. This evidence concerns the gene IL1A and macular retinal edema.