How to select the best surgeon…

If you feel you would like to have a consult with a surgeon for your pterygium due to symptoms, vision issues and/or the overall appearance of your eyes, here are some essential considerations and questions you may wish to ask in order to receive the best possible medical or surgical treatment and care of your eyes:

1. Treats Pterygium as a serious condition, not a trivial one.
2. Spends whatever time you may need to discuss the condition and the surgery.
3. Does not use chemical agents or radiotherapy to prevent occurrence.
4. Find out the experience and skill level of the surgeon performing this type of medical procedure. How many surgeries has he or she performed? How long has he or she been performing this surgery?
5. Appearance is important. How does the eye look cosmetically after having the procedure and the eye is healed?
6. Is he or she involved in any clinical research to support their outcome data? What kind of results do they deliver? What is their recurrence rate?
7. What is the surgeon’s documented, published recurrence rate?
8. What is the surgeon’s documented complication rate?
9. Has the surgeon presented his research at International professional meetings?
10. Ask about the technology available to remove the pterygium? Ask which technique the surgeon uses and how long has he or she had experience in performing this technique? Does he or she perform conjunctival graft surgery to prevent recurrence? Is he or she constantly looking to perfect the technique to enhance the surgical and cosmetic outcome?
11. Ask about the evaluation process. It’s essential to find a surgeon whose team offers the latest, most through testing to evaluate the health of your eye, your vision and how the pterygium may be affecting you. Also, be sure to ask about the post-operative care.
12. Discuss your current health issues and ask whether (and how) they may possibly affect the pterygium surgery.
13. Ask about what kind of outcomes or results you can expect in terms of the quality of your vision, any symptoms alleviated, likelihood of a recurrence or it coming back and the quality of the appearance of the whites of your eye after healing completely from the surgery.

Over the course of 30 years and more than 10,000 pterygiectomies, J. Alberto Martinez, MD has developed a surgical procedure for the removal of pterygium which he has honed and perfected with love and a passion over the years. The method, known as the A.S.A.P procedure (Advanced Sutureless Amniotic Membrane Pterygiectomy) has reduced the recurrence rate from 15% and above usually described in literature to 0.6%. Most importantly, the cosmetic appearance achieved after the A.S.A.P procedure is often so good, the patient tends to forget which eye had the surgery a few months later. Want to learn more? Please click here to schedule a Pterygium consultation.