Safety and efficacy of intraoperative 5-fluorouracil infiltration in pterygium treatment

Purpose: To investigate the safety and efficacy of intraoperative infiltration of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) as an adjuvant drug in pterygium treatment. Methods: Of 125 consecutive patients, 125 eyes with primary and recurrent pterygium underwent pterygium excision with intraoperative 5-FU (25 mg/mL) infiltration. The superior and inferior conjunctiva was approximated to cover the scleral bed and 0.2 mL 5-FU was injected at the end of the surgical procedure. The gender, occupation, pterygium characteristics and the follow-up at 7, 21, 60 e 180 days after surgery were evaluated and the data were statistically analyzed. Results: With follow-up of 180 days the patients had no serious complications observed during or after surgery. The relapse rate was 35.8% and occurred in primary (35.7%) and recurrent (36.4%) lesions with no statistical difference. Conclusions: This study suggests that intraoperative infiltration of 5-FU is safe. However the high recurrence rate indicated that other studies would be necessary to show the concentration/dose to better prevent it.