Pterygium Recurrence- Surgical and Adjuvant Therapies

Purpose: Pterygium is a prevalent disease of the eye that challenges ophthalmologists in its management due to its high tendency to reoccur. We performed an analysis to identify among the various surgical and adjuvant treatments the best combination that has the most pterygium recurrence prevention

Methods: A search was run through Pubmed, Google Scholar, ClinicalTrials.gov, and World Health Organisation for Randomised control trials and other literature comparing surgical and adjuvant treatments for pterygium. This data was then analyzed to ascertain the various advantages and disadvantages of different surgeries and adjuvant therapies over each other.

Results: Following the data analysis, we found out that the order of surgical methods from best to worst is as follows: Conjuctivalautograft>Amniotic membrane autograft>bare sclera. Among the adjuvant therapies studied, we found that the order of effectivity is Mitomycin C followed by anti-VEGF, radiation therapy, and finally 5 Fluorouracil.

Conclusion: Bare scleral excision alone has the highest recurrence rate, followed by Amniotic Autograft and conjunctival autograft. The adjuvants that can reduce pterygium recurrences are Mitomycin C, Anti VEGF, 5-Fluorouracil, and radiation therapy with Mitomycin C, the most frequently used and with lesser late complications. More studies with larger samples and long-term follow-ups directly compare these surgical and adjuvant treatments to develop more uniform guidelines for forming treatment plans.