Efficacy of intralesional bevacizumab injection in decreasing pterygium size.

Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy of intralesional bevacizumab injection in decreasing size of pterygium.

Methods: Seventeen patients with pterygium (14 with primary and 3 with recurrent pterygium) received intralesional injections of bevacizumab (2.5 mg/0.1 mL). Digital photographs were analyzed by image analysis software to determine the change of corneal involvement as a percentage of the total corneal surface.

Results: The mean age of the patients was 45.5 ± 15.8 years. The mean percentage size of lesions before injection was 17.2% ± 4.3% of corneal surface. The mean percentage size of lesions 1 week, 1 month, and 3 months after injection was 15.1% ± 4.3%, 13.4% ± 4.0%, and 14.1% ± 4.4% of corneal surface, respectively. The mean percentage decrease of lesion size was 3.97% ± 3.84%. There were statistically significant differences between percentage of lesion size before and 1 week (P < 0.001), 1 month (P < 0.001), and 3 months (P < 0.001) after injection of bevacizumab. There were neither postinjection ocular complications such as rise of intraocular pressure nor systemic adverse events. Visual acuity did not change after injection of bevacizumab. Despite statistically significant decrease in pterygium size, this decrease does not seem to be clinically significant.

Conclusions: Intralesional bevacizumab injection is fairly effective in reducing the size of pterygium and is well tolerated; however, this effect is not clinically significant.