Abstract
Purpose :
Pterygium is a fibrovascular condition of the ocular surface that can cause a broad range of irritative and visual symptoms. Controversy exists regarding the pterygium mechanisms, management, surgical techniques, adjuvant approaches and its impact on patients' quality of life. We performed a retrospective survey to better understand the impact of pterygium related symptoms before surgery and patients satisfaction after excision surgery followed by conjunctival autograft transplantation with fibrin glue.
Methods :
All patients underwent surgery that consisted of an extensive removal of the pterygium fibrovascular tissue, followed by an autologous conjunctival graft fixed with fibrin glue to cover the bare scleral area, performed by the same surgeon. A total of 215 patients were contacted by phone call and asked to answer a simple 2 questions survey. First, a graduation of the symptoms related to pterygium before surgical intervention, such as pain, irritation, tearing, red eye, photophobia, burning, body sensation, scaled from 0-10 (0 asymptomatic and 10 very important symptoms). We then classified as mild (0-3), moderate (4-7) and severe (8-10). Then, the patients were asked about their satisfaction on surgery results, scaled from 0-10 (ranging from dissatisfied to fully satisfied).
Results :
Patients mean age was 41.1 (min-19/max-82) years old and the mean of days after surgery was 967.2 days (min-347/max-2155). Symptoms were referred as severe (71.8%), moderate (23.9%) and mild (4.3%). After surgery most patients were fully satisfied and the mean grade was 9.4; 0.9% (0-3), 1.9% (4-7) and 97.1% (8-10).
Conclusions :
The present study shows that pterygium excision surgery using conjunctival autograft transplantation and fibrin glue improved quality of life related to pterygium symptoms on patients affected by the condition with high rates of satisfaction. However, there is still lack of understanding on pterygium mechanisms, no consensus on best surgical technique and the recurrence rates remain a challenge, justifying the need of further research on this area.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.