Optical Zone Centration Accuracy Using Corneal Fixation-based SMILE Compared to Eye Tracker-based Femtosecond Laser-assisted LASIK for Myopia

PURPOSE: To compare the optical zone centration accuracy between myopic eyes treated with small incision lenticule extraction (SMILE) and LASIK. METHODS: Retrospective analysis of 100 consecutive eyes treated with SMILE (the SMILE group) with the corneal fixation-based centration VisuMax femtosecond laser (Carl Zeiss Meditec, Jena, Germany) and a matched group of 100 eyes treated with LASIK (the LASIK group) with VisuMax flap creation and eye tracker-based centration MEL 90 excimer laser (Carl Zeiss Meditec) ablation. In SMILE, the corneal vertex of the coaxially fixating eye was aligned with the vertex of the curved contact glass. In LASIK, the treatment was centered on the coaxially sighted corneal light reflex (first Purkinje image). A tangential (instantaneous) curvature preoperative to postoperative difference map was generated for each eye. A fixed grid and set of concentric circles were superimposed on the difference map to measure the offset between the optical zone center and corneal vertex (0,0), and vector analysis was used for comparative analysis at 3 months postoperatively. RESULTS: Mean centration offset was 0.20 +/- 0.11 mm for the SMILE group and 0.17 +/- 0.10 mm for the LASIK group, with no statistically significant difference between groups (P >. 05). In the SMILE group, the optical zone was centered within 0.1 mm of the corneal vertex in 17% of eyes, within 0.2 mm in 55% of eyes, within 0.3 mm in 81% of eyes, and within 0.4 mm in 96% of eyes. In the LASIK group, the optical zone was centered within 0.1 mm of the corneal vertex in 24% of eyes, within 0.2 mm in 62% of eyes, within 0.3 mm in 92% of eyes, and within 0.4 mm in 98% of eyes. There was no systematic directional decentration in either group. CONCLUSION: Optical zone centration accuracy was no different between SMILE and LASIK with the MEL 90 laser.