PURPOSE: To assess the effect of 5-fluorouracil (5FU) injected in pterygia before surgery. METHODS: 53 eyes of 52 patients (28 primary and 25 recurrent pterygia) underwent subconjunctival 5-fluorouracil application 30 days before surgery - group 1 (G1) and 10 days before surgery - group 2 (G2). All surgeries were performed by the same surgeon, who used the same technique in all patients. Patients were assessed 7, 30 and 60 days after surgery. Results were submitted to statistical analysis (p<0,05). RESULTS: There were 52,8% primary and 47,2% recurrent pterygia, equally distributed regarding gender. There were no complications due to the infiltration of the drug. Recurrence occurred more frequently among recurrent pterygia and in G1. CONCLUSIONS: The use of subconjunctival 5-fluorouracil into the pterygium did not cause any deleterious effect to the studied eyes. There was less recurrence rate in the 10-day preoperative use of 5-fluorouracil when compared to the 30-day preoperative use of the drug.
Pterygium; Ophthalmic solutions; Fluorouracil; Fluorouracil; Mitomycin; Recurrence; Intraoperative care
