Femto SMILE: Everything You Need to Know About SMILE Pro Surgery

Femto SMILE is used to correct refractive errors — myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism. With this advanced technique, vision correction has become more refined than ever, and the procedure is performed at Cornea Clinic under the care of Dr. Shaarawy.

SMILE is one of the newer refractive eye surgeries to emerge in recent years and sits within the broader family of LASIK procedures. In this article you will learn what SMILE is, how it is performed, how it compares to other LASIK techniques, and what its advantages and limitations are.

How the SMILE Procedure Works

Step by Step Through SMILE Surgery

A SMILE procedure typically takes 10 to 20 minutes. The short operating time reflects the efficiency of the modern femtosecond technology, which keeps surgical impact to a minimum and makes SMILE one of the safest refractive procedures available.

During SMILE, a small lenticule is created inside the cornea using the VisuMax femtosecond laser and removed through a tiny incision to correct the refractive error. The steps are:

• Dr. Shaarawy applies anaesthetic eye drops, then opens the eye with a lid speculum. A thin lenticule is shaped within the corneal stroma and accessed through a small opening of about 2.5 mm.
• Based on your corneal map, the femtosecond laser shapes the lenticule precisely to correct the refractive error.

Advantages of SMILE

SMILE delivers strong visual outcomes for myopia and astigmatism — comparable to traditional LASIK.

One of the biggest advantages is corneal preservation: only a small 2.5 mm incision is made, sparing more of the cornea and most of its nerves.

Recovery is quick. Most patients return to normal activities within a couple of days, and the procedure itself is typically painless during and after surgery.

SMILE can also correct higher degrees of refractive error.

Post-operative dryness tends to be milder and shorter-lived than after standard LASIK.

SMILE is often the preferred choice for people whose work or sport involves contact and impact — footballers, combat athletes, and others — because the corneal surface remains more stable than after LASIK.

Limitations of SMILE

Despite the advanced technology, SMILE has consistently shown stronger results in myopia than in hyperopia.

SMILE is generally less suitable for very mild myopia (below the moderate-to-high range that the platform targets), and recovery in those lower-power eyes can be slower than with standard LASIK, sometimes taking three weeks or more for vision to settle.

To find out whether SMILE is right for you, please book a consultation with Dr. Shaarawy for a full corneal evaluation.