Objective To observe the clinical features of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) with retinopathy.Methods Ninety-seven SLE patients were enrolled in this comparative clinical study. The patients were divided into retinopathy group (positive group, 32 eyes of 23 patients) and non-retinopathy group (negative group, 148 eyes of 74 patients). The age, course of disease, clinical features, laboratory results in these two groups were comparatively analyzed.Results The positive rate of retinopathy in all SLE patients was 23.7%. Seventeen patients (22 eyes, 73.9%) of positive group had retinal cotton-wool spot, retinal hemorrhage, tortuous retinal vein, retinal arterial spasm, microaneurysm and hard exudates. The other six patients (10 eyes, 26.1%) in this group showed retinal main vessel occlusion. The incidence rate of rash, cutaneous vasculitis, elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), decreased complement C3 and positive anti double stranded-DNA (anti-ds-DNA) antibody in the positive group were higher than those in the negative group (chi;2=9.206, 6.987, 7.824, 8.581, 6.599;P＜0.05). There was no significant difference between these two groups in age, course of disease, mucosal ulcers, arthritis, fever, headache, neutropenia, thrombocytopenia, proteinuria, elevated blood urea nitrogen, increased creatinine, positive antinuclear (ANA) and anti-Sm antibodies (t=0.321, 0.063;chi;2=0.135, 0.046, 0.176, 0.002, 0.036, 0.113, 0.053,0.032,0.012,0.000,0.004;P＞0.05). Conclusions Tortuous retinal veins, retinal cotton-wool spots and retinal main vessels occlusion are the three major fundus features of SLE patient with retinopathy. Rash, cutaneous vasculitis, increased ESR, decreased complement C3 and positive anti-ds-DNA antibody are the five major systemic clinical features of SLE patient with retinopathy.