Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a common neurovascular complication of diabetes patients, which seriously threatens the vision health of working-age people and brings a heavy social and economic burden to our society.Most patients with DR have progressed to the stage of proliferative diabetic retinopathy and need to receive intravitreal injection of drugs or surgery but resulting in poor recovery of vision.Therefore, exploring new biomarkers is of great significance for the diagnosis and treatment of early DR.High-throughput proteomics research can examine smaller volumes of biological fluid specimen such as aqueous humor, vitreous humor, tears, and serum, finding differential proteins involved in inflammatory processes in the retina, providing references for the early diagnosis and treatment of DR.Proteomics techniques used for the screening and identification of inflammatory biomarkers in DR in recent years and existing problems were reviewed in this article.