$re = '/({matrix}.*? \\\\)( .*?(?={matrix}))/m';
$str = 'matrix \\dfrac{ \\left( \\sqrt{ \\left(\\begin{matrix} 5 \\\\ \\left(\\begin{matrix} 66 \\ 11 \\end{matrix}\\right) \\ \\end{matrix}\\right) \\phantom{\\tiny{!}}} , \\sqrt[ 6 ]{ 66 \\phantom{\\tiny{!}}} \\right) }{ 6 } 5 \\dfrac{ 22 }{ 5 }';
$subst = "$1\\$2";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php