Can SMILE treat high short sightedness?
SMILE is used at higher short sighted prescriptions than some older surface techniques, but what can be treated still depends on the cornea rather than on the prescription alone.
- Subject
- Vision correction
- Topic
- SMILE
- Kind of question
- Can I…
- Procedures
- SMILE, SMILE Pro
- Last reviewed
- 22 September 2026
In more detail
The question a clinic should be able to answer is what your predicted corneal thickness would be afterwards, not whether the number on your prescription is under some threshold.
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Where this answer sits
It is one of 483 answers in the vision and eye health knowledge base, filed under Vision correction & laser eye surgery in SMILE . The subject page carries the answers either side of it, and the hub is searchable.
Subjects this question touches
The pages that answer the subject behind the question, rather than the question itself.
- Procedure SMILE
- Comparison LASIK vs SMILE
- Comparison SMILE vs PRK
- Place SMILE in Dubai
- Procedure SMILE Pro
This information is for educational purposes and does not replace an examination by a qualified eye-care professional.
General answers cannot tell you what is happening in your own eyes. Only an examination by a qualified ophthalmologist can do that.
Sources & further reading
We prefer primary sources. Where a claim comes from a manufacturer, a single study or a regulator, it is labelled as such below.
- Small Incision Lenticule Extraction (SMILE)
A continuously updated clinical reference chapter covering SMILE indications, technique, outcomes and complications, written for clinicians.
Used for How the lenticule is created and removed; Indications and contraindications; Complication categories; Corneal biomechanics compared with flap-based surgery.
Link checked 22 September 2026
- Comparison of clinical outcomes following small incision lenticule extraction with the VISUMAX 800 and VISUMAX 500
A single comparative study of SMILE performed on the newer and older generations of the ZEISS platform. A single study, not a pooled analysis.
Used for The SMILE vs SMILE pro section, explicitly labelled as single-study evidence.
Link checked 22 September 2026