METHOD: This is a case report of a 76-year-old Chinese female, presented as an emergency with spontaneous left eye bleeding. She had underlying uncontrolled hypertension, no other systemic illness and not on anticoagulant. She has a history of right eye cataract operation, right eye angle-closure glaucoma and left eye absolute glaucoma complicated with painless left blind eye. Ocular examination over left eye showed no light perception and demonstrated presence of fresh bleed, expulsion of lens and prolapsed uveal contents, while right eye examination was unremarkable. Patient subsequently underwent evisceration and was uneventful.

RESULTS: Routine blood investigations including coagulation profile came back as normal. Surgical findings include perforated cornea more than three-fourths with prolapsed uveal contents and fragile conjunctiva. No other significant macroscopic conditions were noted. Histology and culture came back with growth of Pseudomonas aeuroginosa with no evidence of malignancy.

OBJECTIVES: To assess the effectiveness of fibrin glue compared to sutures in conjunctival autografting for the surgical treatment of pterygium.

SEARCH METHODS: We searched CENTRAL (which contains the Cochrane Eyes and Vision Trials Register) (2016, Issue 9), Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid MEDLINE In-Process and Other Non-Indexed Citations, Ovid MEDLINE Daily, Ovid OLDMEDLINE (January 1946 to October 2016), Embase (January 1980 to October 2016), the ISRCTN registry (www.isrctn.com/editAdvancedSearch), ClinicalTrials.gov (www.clinicaltrials.gov), and the World Health Organization (WHO) International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) (www.who.int/ictrp/search/en). We did not use any date or language restrictions in the electronic searches for trials. We last searched the electronic databases on 14 October 2016.

SELECTION CRITERIA: We included randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in any setting where fibrin glue was compared with sutures to treat people with pterygium.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two review authors independently screened the search results, assessed trial quality, and extracted data using standard methodological procedures expected by Cochrane. Our primary outcome was recurrence of pterygium defined as any re-growth of tissue from the area of excision across the limbus onto the cornea. The secondary outcomes were surgical time and complication rate. We graded the certainty of the evidence using GRADE.

MAIN RESULTS: We included 14 RCTs conducted in Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Sweden and Turkey. The trials were published between 2004 and 2016, and were assessed as a mixture of unclear and low risk of bias with three studies at high risk of attrition bias. Only adults were enrolled in these studies.Using fibrin glue for the conjunctival autograft may result in less recurrence of pterygium compared with using sutures (risk ratio (RR) 0.47, 95% CI 0.27 to 0.82, 762 eyes, 12 RCTs; low-certainty evidence). If pterygium recurs after approximately 10 in every 100 surgeries with sutures, then using fibrin glue may result in approximately 5 fewer cases of recurrence in every 100 surgeries (95% CI 2 fewer to 7 fewer cases). Using fibrin glue may lead to more complications compared with sutures (RR 1.92; 95% CI 1.22 to 3.02, 11 RCTs, 673 eyes, low-certainty evidence). The most common complications reported were: graft dehiscence, graft retraction and granuloma. On average using fibrin glue may mean that surgery is quicker compared with suturing (mean difference (MD) -17.01 minutes 95% CI -20.56 to -13.46), 9 RCTs, 614 eyes, low-certainty evidence).