Influence of age on small incision lenticule extraction outcomes.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the influence of patient's age at the time of surgery on small incision lenticule extraction (SMILE) refractive outcomes.
METHODS: This is a retrospective, consecutive, comparative study. We compared the refractive outcomes after myopic SMILE from two groups of patients divided by age (patients ≤35 and ≥40 years old). All eyes were evaluated preoperatively and at 1 and 6 months postoperatively. Main outcome measures were differences on efficacy, safety, predictability and astigmatic changes by vector analysis with ASSORT software between both study groups.
RESULTS: 102 matched eyes of 53 patients were included. Preoperatively, we evidenced no differences in the mean SE or astigmatism between groups. However, 6 months postoperatively we observed a significantly worse mean astigmatism (p=0.019), while not regarding SE, in the older population, with a trend towards undercorrection of the refractive cylinder in the ≥40 group. We also observed a statistically significant difference in the efficacy (0.86-1 month and 0.97-6 months in ≥40group vs 0.97-1 month and 1.07-6 months in the ≤35 group; p=0.003) and safety indexes (0.93-1 month and 1.04-6 months in ≥40 group vs 1.0-1 month and 1.11-6 months in the ≤35 group; p=0.008) at 6 months among groups.
CONCLUSIONS: Post-SMILE refractive outcomes in those patients over 40 years of age, although acceptable, are not as good as those obtained in younger patients, showing a significantly lower efficacy and safety indexes, and poorer astigmatic outcomes, with a tendency towards undercorrection. We hypothetise that the increased corneal stroma stiffness in the aged group modifies the post-SMILE corneal stroma remodelling capacity, thus affecting the SMILE refractive and visual response. © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.