All donor tissues were collected from the eye bank of the Hainan Eye Hospital in accordance with local guidelines (Hainan Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau of the People's Republic of China). Topical anaesthesia consisted of proparacaine hydrochloride eye drops (Alcaine; Alcon Laboratories, Fort Worth, TX). A myopic correction of −0.75 diopters (28 μm thickness) using a femtosecond laser system under SMILE treatment was performed on the recipient cornea, and the surgical incision was 2.5 mm long. The surgeon unfolded the lenticule with microforceps and created a “stromal pocket” at a depth of 160 μm from the cornea epithelium, followed by implantation of the lenticule into the “stromal pocket.” The surgical procedures were detailed in our previous studies [13 (link), 16 (link)]. Following the surgery, all patients received tobramycin and dexamethasone (Alcon Laboratories, US) eye drops 4 times per day for 2 weeks and recombinant bovine basic fibroblast growth factor (Fusion Protein, Bausch and Lomb, Rochester, NY) eye gel 3 times per day for 6 months.
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