The Surgeon’s Guide to SMILE

Small-incision lenticule extraction (SMILE®) is gaining in popularity. The Surgeon’s Guide to SMILE (Slack Incorporated) seeks to provide a thorough guide to performing the procedure. Written by Dan Z. Reinstein, Timothy J. Archer and Glenn I. Carp, this guide can both get a surgeon started and refine a more experienced surgeon’s technique. This book is written to provide step-by-step assistance from day one. The first few chapters describe the history of intrastromal refractive surgery, its advantages over its predecessors and the manner in which a preoperative assessment should be conducted. Docking, centration and cyclotorsion receive attention in their own chapter, followed by the actual photodisruption by the femtosecond laser and specific instructions on how to optimise energy and spot spacing settings. Particularly useful for the starting surgeons were the chapters on which surgical instruments to select and how to manage patient anxiety. The latter includes specific sentences to say to patients, such as when placing a lid speculum. “It will feel very strange at first, but just keep looking straight ahead, in about 30 seconds you won’t even know this is here.” This book is ideal for fellows in refractive surgery as well as general ophthalmologists who are entering the refractive field and are considering adding SMILE to their offerings.

Tags: lenticule extraction, SMILE