• Posted October 24, 2025

LASIK Armed With 3D Eye Model Provides Better Vision Correction

An advanced form of LASIK eye surgery that uses a virtual 3D model of a person’s eye appears to offer patients better vision, a new study says.

About 98% of eyes treated with the “wavelight plus” form of LASIK gained improved vision, compared to 82% of eyes treated with a competing process called SMILE Pro, researchers reported Saturday in Orlando, Florida, at a meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

"The wavelight plus results are particularly encouraging for the future of the field," lead researcher Dr. John Kanellopoulos said in a news release. He’s a clinical professor of ophthalmology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City.

To perform LASIK, doctors open a thin flap in the cornea, through which they use lasers to reshape the tissue beneath to correct a person’s vision, researchers said in background notes.

The wavelight plus version of LASIK creates a 3-D digital model of the eye undergoing correction, based on more than 100,000 data points from each eye. This allows doctors to go into the procedure with a highly personalized plan of action.

For the new study, researcher recruited 60 patients who got wavelight plus LASIK in one eye and SMILE Pro in the other.

In SMILE Pro, doctors don’t have to open a flap in the cornea, which proponents say offers better structural integrity of the eye and fewer dry eye symptoms.

Results showed that every eye treated with wavelight plus achieved close to the target prescription, compared with three-quarters of eyes treated with SMILE Pro.

More than 80% of eyes treated with this form of LASIK gained an additional line of vision beyond their baseline, compared with fewer than one-third of eyes treated with SMILE Pro, researchers said.

“We found that ray-tracing LASIK not only effectively corrected refractive error, but also improved visual performance at higher percentages than SMILE Pro,” Kanellopoulos said.

Wavelight plus LASIK also created fewer optical imperfections that can affect night vision and ability to perceive contrast, and it was better able to correct astigmatisms. Astigmatisms are caused by an irregularly shaped cornea or lens, which causes distorted vision or blurriness at all distances.

Kanellopoulos said these results suggest patients seeking the sharpest possible vision should consider wavelight plus LASIK, particularly if they have complex prescriptions or astigmatisms.

However, larger studies are needed to validate these findings, he said.

Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The American Academy of Ophthalmology has more on LASIK and SMILE.

SOURCE: American Academy of Ophthalmology, news release, Oct. 18, 2025