Limbal-Conjunctival Autograft Transplantation for the Treatment of Primary Pterygium

ABSTRACT

Pterygium is a common surgical ocular disease which recurs frequently. Various different techniques have been developed for the successful surgical treatment of pterygium and among them, autograft transplantation is known as the best successful surgical method. For the prevention of recurrence, the corneal epithelium must heal before the fibrovascular tissue grows and reaches to limbus. For this, we have believed that limbal transplanta- tion is more suitable than conjunctival transplantation. We had performed limbal-conjunctival autograft trasplata- tion for 52 patients with primary pterygia whose age was under 40 years old,or whose pterygia had involved above 5mm beyond limbus and had shown diffuse subconjunctival fibrovascular tissue. The recurrence rate was 1.9%and therewere no complications and no surgical problems. Therefore,we recommend this surgical technique as a safe and effective method of treating primary pterygia with the risk factors of recurrence.