Pterygium is a common eye disease with fibro-vascular origin. Since growth factors play an important role in some eye diseases, the fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21), a member of this family, has been involved in reducing neovascularization. Considering that the serum level of FGF21 was correlated with vascular eye disease such as diabetic retinopathy and Retinopathy of Prematurity in previous studies, this study compared the serum fibroblast growth factor 21 in patients with and without pterygium.

This descriptive analytical cross-sectional study was performed on all individuals with pterygium who were visited in Ophthalmology Clinic of Khatam-al-Anbia Hospital in Mashhad during 2017. Control subjects were selected from healthy people without pterygium disease .Sixty people (30 in the patient group and 30 in the control group) entered the study with convenient sampling method. Intravenous blood samples were taken from all patients and after the preparation of the patients, the freeze was checked at the end of the sampling by ELISA method.

The mean serum FGF 21 in pterygium group was 319.09±246.93 pg/ml and the serum FGF 21 level in control subjects was 608.88±449.81 pg/ml (P=0.005). The mean Fibroblastic Growth Factor 21 in healthy subjects to pterygium in terms of sex showed that the average serum fibroblastic growth factor 21 was 281.55±40.74 pg/ml in the males and 361.375±10.298 pg/ml in females and the difference was not statistically significant (P=0.19)

The results of this study showed that the level of Fibroblastic Growth Factor 21 in patients was lower than the level of Fibroblastic Growth Factor 21 in control subjects, which showed significant differences.