Bored of normal eyeballs - Review

A 53 year old man from Barbados comes into your Fast Track area with complaints of a foreign object in his eye. He worked for years in the tropical outdoors as a conservationists.

You examine his eye, preparing to fake a funduscopic exam before you fluorecein his eye like crazy, only to immediately find the answer to your search:

Penguicula, Pterygium, episcleritis or conjunctival neoplasm?

This is a Pterygium:

: A benign fibrovascular growth of the conjunctiva that typically originates in the nasal aspect of the eye, is wedge shaped and grows towards the sclera.

: Risk factors are sun exposure (UV light) and dusty, sandy environments (thus the colloquial name: “surfer’s eye”).

: Treatment is never emergent, and usually requires only symptomatic relief with artificial tears. If the lesions starts to impair vision it can be surgically excised, but is likely to recur.

** If lesion is irregular, in an axis other than nasal, extending to sclera or highly vascular, there is a higher suspicion for conjunctival malignancy.

Penguicula: is a collection of calcified collagen that occurs in the Limbus (conjunctival-scleral junction).