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Amnion-shielded trabeculectomy helps control refractory glaucoma
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Trabeculectomy with adjuvant use of amniotic membranes may help control IOP in patients with severely refractory glaucoma, a small study in Norway suggests.
Liv Drolsum, MD, and colleagues at Ullevål University Hospital in Oslo evaluated the outcomes of the procedure in nine eyes of nine patients. All patients had previously undergone two or more trabeculectomies with mitomycin-C (MMC), and one patient had undergone cyclodestructive cryotherapy.
Trabeculectomy was performed through a limbus-based incision. Cryopreserved human amniotic membranes impregnated with 0.4 mg/mL of MMC and washed for 2 minutes in balanced salt solution, were sutured to the scleral surface and secured to subconjunctival tissue so that they shielded the trabeculectomy flap.
The researchers found that mean IOP decreased from 32.2 mm Hg at baseline to 16.4 mm Hg at a 9.8 months mean follow-up. The average number of glaucoma medications used decreased from 2.4 at baseline to 1.4 postoperatively.
No patients experienced any "devastating complications," the authors said.
The study is published in the December issue of Acta Ophthalmologica Scandinavica.