Study: Mini-flap technique more effective than conjunctival autograft for pterygium surgery

Performing surgery using a mini-flap technique without mitomycin-C appears to be safer and more effective than using a conjunctival autograft technique without MMC for reducing postoperative recurrence of primary pterygium, according to a retrospective study by researchers in South Korea.

Min Kim, MD, and colleagues compared postoperative results after performing pterygium surgery using either the mini-flap technique or conjunctival autograft transplantation — both without the aid of MMC — on 90 eyes. Specifically, 41 eyes of 34 patients underwent conjunctival autograft transplantation between March 1999 and December 2001, and 49 eyes of 43 patients received conjunctival mini-flap between January 2002 and February 2004.

The investigators reported the recurrence of primary pterygium in two patients (4.7%) in the mini-flap group and six patients (17.6%) in the conjunctival autograft group.

Among patients with recurrent pterygium, recurrence occurred in one of six cases (16.7%) in the mini-flap group and one of seven cases (14.3%) in the conjunctival autograft group, the authors noted.

Additionally, the mini-flap group had a lower rate of recurrence (6.1%) than the conjunctival autograft transplantation group (17.1%; P = .042), according to the study, published online ahead of print in Ophthalmologica.