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Updated: Dec 25, 2025
Ye's Swing Technique for Small-incision Lenticule Extraction Surgery
Published on: June 27, 2025
Laser-assisted subepithelial keratomileusis substituted for an aborted small-incision lenticule extraction due to
Minshu Wang1, Yueguo Chen, Yu Zhang
1From the Department of Ophthalmology, Peking University Third Hospital (Wang, Chen, Zhang), and Key Laboratory of Restoration of Damaged Ocular Nerve (Wang, Chen, Zhang), Beijing, China.
Abstract:
A 25-year-old woman with moderate myopia presented for refractive surgery. Bilateral femtosecond laser-assisted small-incision lenticule extraction (SMILE) was scheduled and her right eye was completed smoothly. However, during the lenticule cutting of her left eye, a large inferior black area was noted. The operation was abandoned after an immediate optical coherence tomography examination, which revealed the corneal epithelium defect with no laser scanning line at the corresponding site. The secondary surgery was assigned to laser-assisted subepithelial keratomileusis (LASEK) after 1 week. The uncorrected distance visual acuity of her left eye recovered to 20/25 on the 12th day and to 20/20 at 3-month follow-up, with ideal corneal topography profiles. Corneal epithelium defect induced by accidental alcohol contact during disinfection was suspected to cause the black area. The management of black area had to be determined according to the location and size. LASEK was a rational substitution for the aborted SMILE.
