Outcome of Pterygium Surgery with Fibrin Glue in Hospital Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

1. Rohanah Alias
2. Mahiran Che Daud
3. Thiageswari Umapathy

Ophthalmology Department, Hospital Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Purpose: To evaluate the 1. Prevalence and severity of pterygium 2. Recurrence rate and safety of fibrin glue in pterygium surgery with conjunctival autograft.

Methods: It is a retrospective non comparative study involving patients undergoing pterygium surgery from Jun 2008 till Jun 2009.The cases were primary pterygium. The surgery was performed by specialists and trainees. The pterygium were graded depending on the extent of corneal involvement, grade I-3. The surgery was performed by harvesting superior conjunctival autograft and transferred onto bare sclera with Tisseel fibrin glue. All the patients were followed up at 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 3 months and 6 months postoperatively. Visual acuity and slit-lamp examination were performed. The rate of pterygium recurrence was monitored. Safety data included monitoring for pain, conjunctival graft loss and infection.

Results: A total of 91 patients were recruited, mean age was 52.47 and mainly male 59.3%. 70.3% of the pterygium cases were grade 2 and 15.4% were grade 3. 90.1% was nasal pterygium, 6.6% had temporal pterygium and 3.3% had nasal and temporal. 5% had recurrent at one month and 12.1% at three month and no new recurrent at 6 month. 15.3% of the recurrent was grade 1, 14.2% grade 3 and 10.9% grade 2. All the conjunctival grafts were secured adequately with no cases of dislodgement. There were no serious adverse events and no reduction in visual acuity.

Conclusions: Fibrin glue provided adequate adhesion of conjunctival grafts to the ocular surface. It is a safe surgery and low recurrent rate.