Safety profile and complications of autologous limbal conjunctival transplantation for primary pterygium

Purpose: Primary pterygium is a fibrovascular proliferation over the nasal cornea, probably resulting from the limbal stem cell deficiency. Intraoperative mitomycin-C application seems to associate with reduced recurrences, however produced ocular surfaceproblems and vision threatening complications. The present clinical study investigated the safety profile of autologous limbalconjunctival transplantation in terms of recurrence rate, as the main outcome measure and complications as the secondary outcome.Methods: The present study was randomised, interventional and prospective clinical study conducted from a tertiary Hospital. Pterygium excision was performed with limbal conjunctival autograft availed from the affected eye. Secondary pterygia resulting from inflammation, trauma and other diseases were excluded. Patients were followed up for 18 months for recurrence and other complications. Microsoft Office Excel 2007 was used for statistical analysis. Results: A total of 71 eyes of sixty-eight patients with primary pterygia included between November 2007 and October 2010. Thestudy recruited 35 (51%) males and 33 (49%) females with mean age of 36.9 with ±12.82 years standard deviation (mean, SD) ranging from 19 to 75 years. Age grouped by range intervals categorised into six groups. Pterygium was diagnosed in 32 (45%) right eyes and 39 (55%) left eyes. There were 65 (91.55%) nasal and 4 (5.63%) temporal pterygium and no case of double head pterygia found. Average horizontal extension of the pterygium measured was 1.67 mm (±4.23) from the apex to the corneal limbus. Graft oedema in 1 (0.71%) patient, graft bleed in 2 (1.42%) cases and 1 (0.72%) case of granuloma observed. No recurrences encountered during 18 months follow up.Conclusions: Pterygium occurred predominantly in the younger population group 36.9 mm (±12.82) probably due to theincreased outdoor activity with high exposure to sunlight and dusty atmosphere. Absence of recurrences was probablyattributable to the smaller pterygium size of 1.67 mm (±4.23), use of the autologous limbal conjunctival graft and treatable intra and post operative complications successfully.