Novel clinical application of sterilized, freeze‐dried amniotic membrane to treat patients with pterygium

Abstract

ABSTRACT.Purpose: To evaluate the use of sterilized, freeze-dried amniotic membrane (FD-AM) transplantation for pterygium surgery. Methods: This study involved a prospective, non-comparative, interventional case series. Thirteen eyes of 13 patients with primary (eight eyes) or recurrent (five eyes) pterygium were studied. After excision of the pterygium fibrous tissues and application of intraoperative use of mitomycin-C, sterilized FD-AM was sutured over the bare scleral defect. The integrity of the FD-AM graft, epithelialization over the FD-AM, pterygium recurrence and postoperative complications were evaluated. Results: Postoperatively, the FD-AM was well retained in all patients, and complete epithelialization over the transplanted membrane was achieved within 1-2 weeks. All patients demonstrated early resolution of ocular inflammation and there was no recurrence of pterygium in any of the treated patients during the mean follow-up of 13.9 ± 6.0 months. No ocular complications were noted following transplantation. Conclusion: Sterilized FD-AM showed excellent biocompatibility on the human ocular surface. This novel and promising biomaterial may be a useful alternative to conjunctival grafting in the treatment of pterygium.

The effects of different preservation processes on the total protein and growth factor content in a new biological product developed from human amniotic membrane

“…In fact, the biological characterization of sterilized, freeze-dried AM used in ocular surface reconstruction and its effectiveness has been already reported (Nakamura et al 2004;Nakamura et al 2006;Sekiyama et al 2007). This is the first work focused on the biological content of freeze-dried, powdered and sterilized hAM specifically prepared for topical use; any clinical trials on its possible in vivo effectiveness have been already reported.…”

“…These papers reported the effectiveness of sterilized, freeze-dried hAM used for ocular surface reconstruction, investigating effects of preservative processes on the in vitro and in vivo (Nakamura et al 2004;Nakamura et al 2006;Sekiyama et al 2007) properties of hAM.…”

Augmented dried versus cryopreserved amniotic membrane as an ocular surface dressing

“…AM is now commonly used as a permanent graft or a temporary patch in a plethora of conjunctival and corneal procedures [12][13][14][15][16].…”

Assessment of the use of cryopreserved x freeze-dried amniotic membrane (AM) for reconstruction of ocular surface in rabbit model

“…Reports have shown that the characteristics of AM are preserved by lyophilization (15) and the use of this tissue gives good results in ocular surface reconstruction after pterygium surgery (16) . This method reduces preservation costs, facilitates storage and transport, and may encourage the use of AM in surgical procedures.…”