Treatment for Recurrent Pterygium

Overview

Our objective was to evaluate the postoperative outcomes of the surgical treatment for recurrent pterygia. Twelve eyes of 10patients operated on for recurrent pterygia at the Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital Hradec Kralove, CzechRepublic, were involved in this study. All surgeries were done under the local anesthesia. The pterygium head was underminedand removed by dissection to reach the clear corneal lamelae. The pterygium body was thoroughly removed with extensivedissection of scared pathological tissue. In 3 eyes, the Mitomycin C 0.004 % solution was applied. Preserved human amnioticmembrane was placed over the corneal and conjunctival defects and sutured with 8/0 Vicryl interrupted sutures. Postoperativeresults were good; in 11 eyes we did not observe the true corneal recurrence of fibrovascular tissue. In one eye only, the lamellarsclerokeratoplasty was necessary to perform because of the recurrence of pterygium.Recurrent pterygium exhibits a more aggressive, fibrovascular growth pattern, leading to the corneal and conjunctival scarringand limbal stem cells deficiency. Proper excision of pathological tissue with amniotic membrane transplantation and/orMitomycin C represents an alternative surgical method with good final outcomes.

Key words:
recurrent pterygium, surgical treatment, amniotic membrane