How far do you insert the Chopper for Phaco Chop?

A young surgeon who is new to phaco chop asked me how deep to insert the chopper tip into the nucleus. It’s a great question and insufficient insertion of the phaco tip is often a reason for failure to achieve the chop. The chopper tip is designed for a type of phaco chop technique. There are choppers for horizontal chop with tend to have a shorter length tip that is not sharp, choppers for vertical chop which have a sharper tip, and choppers like the one I use which is a combination of the two.

For most of my chopping techniques, I insert the chopper tip until it is mostly or completely buried into the nucleus. This allows better leverage to create and then propagate the chop to fully cleave the nucleus into smaller pieces.

Click below to learn how far to insert the chopper tip in phaco chop: