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Free conjunctival, conjunctival-limbal autograft yield similar recurrence rates after pterygium excision with MMC
Ophthalmology. 2012;119(2):227-232.
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No significant difference in recurrence rates was observed when comparing free conjunctival autograft and conjunctival-limbal autograft after pterygium surgery with adjunctive mitomycin C application.
The prospective, randomized study included 87 eyes of 86 patients with primary or recurrent nasal pterygia. All study participants underwent pterygium excision and removal of subconjunctival fibrovascular tissue with application of 0.02% MMC for 3 minutes, and were then assigned to receive either free conjunctival autograft (CAU) or conjunctival-limbal autograft (CLAU).
Seventy-eight eyes of 78 patients reached 1 year of follow-up, with 39 eyes in each group.
There were no pterygium recurrences observed in the CLAU group. In the CAU group, recurrences occurred in one patient with primary pterygium and one patient with recurrent pterygium.
"Both CAU and CLAU were almost equally effective in preventing pterygium recurrence in primary and recurrent cases, with no remarkable advantage in including the limbal graft," the researchers wrote. "However, CLAU, which is more time consuming and requires greater surgical expertise, resulted in a damaged limbus in some eyes."