Bevacizumab as adjuvant therapy in the management of pterygium: a systematic review and Meta-analysis

AIM: To evaluate the clinical effect of bevacizumab in pterygium treatment. METHODS: A systematic review and quantitative Meta-analysis was performed. PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science and Cochrane database were searched for eligible literatures published in English until June 2016. The endpoint was recurrence rate and pooled risk ratio (RR) was calculated. RESULTS: Nine eligible studies were included and Meta-analysis results showed no significantly difference in patients treated with bevacizumab in short term follow-up [3mo: RR=0.70 (0.34, 1.45); 6mo: RR=0.55 (0.23, 1.32)] compared with control groups. No significant effects were observed in favor of bevacizumab in subgroup analyses: patients with subconjunctival injection of bevacizumab [3mo: RR=0.95 (0.70, 1.29); 6mo: RR=0.83 (0.55, 1.28)], primary pterygium [3mo: RR=0.59 (0.23, 1.54; 6mo: RR=0.59 (0.23, 1.53)], simple pterygium excision [3mo: 0.32 (0.05, 2.04), P=0.23; 6mo: 0.27 (0.05, 1.53)] and excision with conjunctival autograft [3mo: 1.51 (0.25, 9.15); 6mo: 1.11 (0.06, 21.69)]. CONCLUSION: In this Meta-analysis, we did not found the significant effect of bevacizumab in pterygium treatment, at least in short term follow-up (3mo and 6mo).