RESUMEN
Purpose: To report our initial experience in patients with primary pterygium surgery who had a transparent intrastromal corneal lenticule as a free graft obtained during small incision lenticule extraction (SMILE) surgery. Observations: This study enrolled five eyes of 5 patients with pterygium who were surgically treated with single or double free lenticule that was sutured to the defective area of the nasal corneosclera immediately following pterygium excision. All cases with pterygium were primary, and topical mitomycin C was not used at the time of surgery. The mean age of the patients was 51.0 years and 2 of the 5 eyes belonged to male subjects. The patients were followed up for an average of six months. During the follow-up period, the lenticule grafts demonstrated no sign of rejection and were intact in all cases. All patients recovered well with no complications or recurrences at six months postoperatively. Conclusions and Importance: This report suggests that transparent corneal lenticules obtained during SMILE laser surgery may be used as an alternative novel graft source for the surgical treatment of patients with primary pterygium. It appears to be a safe, easy, cost- and time-effective reliable method.
RESUMEN
PURPOSE: To conduct a bibliometric and altmetric analysis of the top 50 most-cited articles on small incision lenticule extraction (SMILE) surgery and assess its correlations with other metrics. METHODS: The terms "small incision lenticule extraction" or "SMILE" were searched in the title, abstract, and keywords using Web of Science database. The retrieved articles (n = 927, between 2010 and 2022) were analyzed in-depth using altmetric attention scores (AAS), and traditional metrics (citation numbers of articles, impact factor of journals, and other citation-based metrics). A correlation statistics was performed with metrics. The articles' focus was examined quantitatively and the most prolific parameters were identified. Authorship network and country statistics also was examined. RESULTS: Citation numbers were between 491 and 45. AASs were between 26 and 0. The altmetric score correlated moderately with citation number (r = 0.44, P = 0.001) and annual mean citations (r = 0.49, P < 0.001), but correlated weakly with impact factor (r = 0.28, P = 0.045), and immediacy index (r = 0.32, P = 0.022). The most articles published from China and the most articles were published in 2014. Modern SMILE surgery was mostly compared to the older LASIK procedure. The highest authorship number of links belonged to Zhou XT. CONCLUSION: The first bibliometric and altmetric analysis of SMILE research provides novel directions for future work by showing the current research trends, prolific parameters, and zones with potential for the public's attention, providing useful information about the dissemination of scientific knowledge on SMILE in social media and to the general public.
