New approach to amnioplasty in surgical treatment of primary progressing pterygium

Purpose: to improve the efcacy of surgical treatment of primary progressing pterygium by developing a new method of amnioplasty. Material and Methods. 85 patients were divided into two groups based on topographical features of amnioplasty site. The main group included 42 subjects who underwent amnioplasty using a technique which was proposed by us (after surgical removal of primary progressive pterygium at the initial site); the control group included 43 subjects in whom amnioplasty at the zone of limbus was performed after removing the pterygium. The criteria for evaluating treatment efcacy were time to disappearance of symptoms of postoperative infammation, time to complete corneal epithelialization and vitalization of the amnion, visual acuity in the frst year after surgery, reduction of corneal astigmatism, recurrence rate. Results. Amnioplasty technique proposed by us showed high efcacy: time of postoperative ocular surface infammation decreased, which led to an increase in corneal epithelization rate by 1.7 times and in amnion vitalization rate by 1.2 times; reduction of astigmatism by 3 times and an increase in visual acuity by 3.9 times when compared to the control group. Conclusion.