Sinus lift is performed prior to dental implant surgery to support implants in the upper jaw. Sinus lift or subantral augmentation as an option of bone grafting is needed in order to increase the amount of bone in the upper jaw on order to place an implant in its side sections, as its anatomical features do not allow to do it without bone augmentation.
Sinus lift is a surgical elevation of the maxillary sinus floor, which can be done in two main ways: open and closed. The oral surgeon determines the adequacy of bone volume for the implant stabilization using a CT scan or dental panoramic x-ray. The average thickness of the bone must be 10-13 mm. If the bone volume is not enough for placing implants, sinus lifting will be a mandatory procedure.
Despite the need for a sinus lift surgery in many clinical situations, doctors, first of all, take into account the indications and contraindications for surgery. The contraindications to any sinus lift procedure are the following:
-Maxillary sinusitis in the acute stage;
-recently operated area of the maxillary sinus or nasal cavity;
-nasal sinuses or upper jaw cancer;
-a course of radiation or chemotherapy;
-autoimmune diseases;
-smoking.
The contraindications involve the situations when the implant placement procedure without sinus lift is impossible and nothing prevents to perform it, besides the consent of the patient is firm and absolute. There are techniques that allow to perform sinus lifting with simultaneous implant placement and delayed implant placement which requires complete bone healing. The absence of complications and pathological conditions of the maxillary sinus floor after increasing the height of the floor are indications for sinus lift with simultaneous implant placement. In this case implants are allowed to place in 6-9 months after sinus lift surgery.
Today, a new technique of a sinus lift procedure with ultrasound is widely used, which was proposed by scientists in 2007, along with a set of special tips for it. This technique to increase the maxillary sinus floor makes it possible to prepare the bone bed using a piezotome instrument without damaging the membrane and with a careful access to the sinus cavity. Then, the tip is changed and the access is expanded under the influence of hydrodynamic cavitation, the membrane is getting increased that makes it possible to fill the cavity with the desired amount of osteoplastic material. Since this is a closed sinus lift, a one-stage dental implant surgery is performed after it.
The specialists of the company Bio3 Implants consider that knowing different sinus lift techniques and using new scientific developments, dental implantologists have opportunities to choose the most sparing ones, taking into account the individual approach to each patient in order to achieve the most effective results. The techniques may be combined in order to ensure the best possible outcome of dental implant treatment.