Diabetic macular edema(DME)is one of the vision-threatening ocular complications of diabetes and is an important cause of blindness in adults. At present, there are 141 million diabetics in China. With the increase of the number of diabetics, the incidence of DME is also increasing year by year. Modern medicine has achieved certain results in the treatment of DME, but the side effects are obvious, and the effectiveness is limited. Mingmu-11 is an effective prescription widely used in the ophthalmology of our hospital. It contains bioactive ingredients such as safranal, crocetin, curcumin, gallic acid, ellagic acid, kaempferol and vanillin. Experimental studies and clinical application reports have shown that Mingmu-11 has a protective effect on nerve damage, ischemia-reperfusion injury, inflammation, oxidative damage, microvascular damage and leakage in the pathogenesis of DME, and it can delay the progression of diabetic retinopathy(DR). The pathogenesis of DME, Mingmu-11 and its active ingredients, and the therapeutic effects on DME are reviewed.