Sutureless amniotic membrane transplantation combined with narrow-strip conjunctival autograft for pterygium

To study the efficacy and safety of sutureless amniotic membrane transplantation combined with narrow-strip conjunctival autograft and to investigate the clinical outcomes. Thirty eyes of 30 patients with primary pterygia were treated in this institutional study with excision followed by sutureless amniotic membrane transplantation combined with narrow-strip conjunctival autograft using fibrin glue tissue adhesive. The main outcome measures were the operating time for ocular surface reconstruction, the size of the pterygium and of the conjunctival autograft, postoperative complications, subjective complaints, and recurrences. The mean pterygium size was 3.12 ± 0.92 mm and the mean operating time was 4.58 ± 1.10 min. Twenty-nine patients (96.7%) had no complaints after first postoperative week. Twenty-eight (93.3%) patients had no recurrences after 1 year follow-up. The sutureless amniotic membrane transplantation combined with narrow-strip conjunctival autograft is an effective procedure with low rate of recurrence. This technique can be considered as a preferred grafting procedure for primary pterygium but further randomized controlled studies including larger populations are needed.