Efficacy of fibrin tissue adhesive in the attachment of autogenous conjuntival graft on primary pterygium surgery

PURPOSE: To compare the efficacy of conjunctival autograft surgery with the attachment to the scleral bed using fibrin tissue adhesive or mononylon 10-0 suture after resection of primary pterygium. METHODS: A comparative, prospective and randomized clinical trial was performed in 47 eyes of 47 patients with primary medial located pterygium. Group 1 (adhesive) was composed by 21 patients that underwent conjunctival autograft closure with fibrin tissue adhesive (QuixilTM) and Group 2 (suture) was composed by 26 patients that underwent pterygium surgery with mononylon 10-0 (Ethicon®) suture (suture group) after pterygium excision. All surgeries were performed by the same surgeon. Patients were assessed on the preoperative period and on the 1st, 14th and 21st postoperative days. They were followed-up with a questionnaire of ocular discomfort and by the surgical time spent, ocular hyperemia, complications and recurrence signals, being the recurrence also evaluated at the 6th postoperative month. Data were submitted to statistical analysis. A value of p<0.005 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: The average surgical time was 19.05 ± 6.12 minutes in group 1 (glue) and 48.15 ± 7.13 minutes in the group 2 (suture) (p<0.001). The ocular discomfort scale analysis showed a lower score in the 1st (p<0.005), 7th (p<0.001) and 21th (p<0.001) postoperative days in group 1. Ocular hyperemia was less intense in all periods of this study in group 1 (p<0.001). Complications were one in each group and both were managed with clinical treatment until the 21th postoperative day. There was one recurrence in group 1 and two in group 2 until the 6th postoperative month. CONCLUSION: In the surgical management of primary pterygium, fibrin tissue adhesive attached the conjunctival autograft, decreased the surgical time and diminished the conjunctival hyperemia and ocular discomfort with similar recurrences on the postoperative period, compared to fixation with mononylon 10.0 suture, proving to be an excellent option for conjunctival autograft attachment in primary pterygium surgery.

Conjunctiva; Pterygium; Fibrin tissue adhesive; Sutures; Conjunctival diseases; Graft vs host disease; Comparative study