Oral doxycycline reduces pterygium lesions; results from a double blind, randomized, placebo controlled clinical trial.

Purpose: To determine whether oral doxycycline treatment reduces pterygium lesions.

Design: Double blind, randomized, placebo controlled clinical trial.

Participants: 98 adult patients with primary pterygium.

Methods: Patients were randomly assigned to receive 100 mg oral doxycycline twice a day (49 subjects), or placebo (49 subjects), for 30 days. Photographs of the lesion were taken at the time of recruitment and at the end of the treatment. Follow-up sessions were performed 6 and 12 months post-treatment. Statistical analyses for both continuous and categorical variables were applied. p values of less than 0.05 were considered to indicate statistical significance.

Main Outcome Measures: The primary endpoint was the change in lesion size after 30 days of treatment.

Results: The primary endpoint was not met for the whole population but subgroup analysis showed that doxycycline was effective in patients of Caucasian origin while other ethnicities, mostly Hispanic, did not respond to the treatment. Moreover, there was a correlation between age and better response (p = 0.003). Adverse events were uncommon, mild, and in agreement with previous reports on short doxycycline treatments.

Conclusions: Oral doxycycline was superior to placebo for the treatment of primary pterygia in older Caucasian patients. These findings support the use of doxycycline for pterygium treatment in particular populations.

Trial Registration: European Union Clinical Trials Register EudraCT 2008-007178-39.