VEGFA and proliferative diabetic retinopathy: Although therapeutic approaches for DR have improved, such as photocoagulation with an argon laser, and intravitreal injections of anti- Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) therapy, the incidence of visual impairment in patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy is not lower and treatment of DR remains challenging (Khan et al., 2020; Rodríguez et al., 2019).