Our guest surgeon is Dr Hafidi Zouheir from Rabat, Morocco and he expertly demonstrates the horizontal chop technique for a dense white cataract and a dense brunescent cataract. Horizontal chop is when the chopper is placed under the capsulorhexis and then around the lens equator. The phaco probe is embedded into the nucleus to fixate it, while the chopper is brought to the phaco tip. Once the chop is started, moving the instruments apart (90 degrees away from the original chopper travel) will propagate the chop and create the full separation of the two halves. Each of these heminuclear pieces can then be further sub-chopped.
click to learn as our guest surgeon demonstrates the horizontal chop technique:
To make placing the horizontal chopper around the lens equator easier, put some dispersive viscoelastic to elevate the anterior capsular rim. Staining the anterior capsule with vision blue could also be helpful.