SMILE stands for Small Incision Lenticule Extraction. This is a flap-free procedure in which vision correction is achieved by removal of a lenticule of corneal tissue through an adjacent tunnel incision. While this does show some promise it has more limitations in terms of range of corrections treatable with this technology and also does not have as much success with astigmatism correction in general. This is only indicated for near-sightedness with lower levels of astigmatism as compared to LASIK which can correct near-sightedness, far-sightedness and higher levels of astigmatism. In addition LASIK has the ability to correct some of the more complex aberrations in the eye called “Higher Order Aberrations” which SMILE in unable to address.