Should You Stick with Divide and Conquer For Cataract Surgery?
March 1, 2009
I see a lot of slick videos of surgeons who do vertical chop, horizontal chop, chop and flip, stack and flack (just kidding on that last one). So sometimes I feel like a loser doing my standard divide and conquer. But it works really well for me, and I like the idea of doing the bulk of the phaco in the bag, away from the endothelium- it keeps my corneas nice and clear, and my complication rate is, thank God, pretty low. If the nucleus is pretty dense, then i will chop the quadrants. I get the feeling that compared to divide-and-conquer, chopping is faster, and that’s the main draw among high volume surgeons. Perhaps you also save a little bit in phaco energy, but since a lot of the phaco energy is in the bag using divide-and-conquer, it explains why in a head-to-head study there was no difference in corneal clarity or endothelial cell loss between the two.
So, I think it’s good for us to be familiar with all techniques, but for all us “losers” who are doing divide-and-conquer- cheer up!
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2 Responses to “Should You Stick with Divide and Conquer For Cataract Surgery?”
agreed!
Nothing wrong w/ divide and conquer. Although not as glamorous, if it’s safe in your hands, that’s what’s most important.
