Dr Judy Ku explains what the treatment for pterygium is and how it works.
What are the treatments for pterygium and how does it work? What are your treatment options?
If it’s relatively small and asymptomatic, then we can observe with zero photography, meaning that we take photos on a regular basis to ensure that there’s no significant growth. You can then take some lubricants, at times when they’re a bit irritated.
On the other hand, if it’s relatively large or causing some irritation and symptoms, it causes suspicions of cancer, and we need to remove it and send it to pathology.
In terms of the actual surgery, it’s a day surgery procedure.
The eyes will be numbed and you have some sedation. When we remove the lesion, we then have to cover it with a conjunctival graft, which means that we take a small piece of the conjunctiva from the same eye and cover the area we’ve taken the pterygium from. Then that graft can be attached by either glue or searches.
At the end of the procedure, we often put in the bandage contact lens to help with post-op recovery and pain relief. This contact lens can stay in for about a week and is often a very effective treatment.
We’d like to invite you to book a consultation with us.
It’s the only way that we can really assess the health of your eye and understand your condition and what we may need to do to get your eye health back to where it should be.
We look forward to meeting you so we can talk in person and discuss your condition in detail and get your eye health back on track.
