The lack of sufficient bone height and bone of poor quality are common deterrents to the placement of implants in the edentulous posterior maxilla by pneumatization of maxillary sinuses. Sinus augmentation has been a predictable surgical technique for...
The lack of sufficient bone height and bone of poor quality are common deterrents to the placement of implants in the edentulous posterior maxilla by pneumatization of maxillary sinuses. Sinus augmentation has been a predictable surgical technique for increasing the existing height with bone of sufficient quality to allow for the successful placement of dental implants. But, an osteotomy in the lateral wall of the sinus is possible to violate the integrity of the vascular supply in the lateral bony wall, resulting in intraoperative bleeding that may be mild to severe in nature. The purpose of this study was to analyse the detection rate, size, and location of the posterior superior artery of Koreans who were taken computerized tomography.Computerized tomography and DentaScan reformatted cross-sectional images of 200 patients treated in the Dental College of Yonsei University were taken for analysis of the posterior superior alveolar artery. Based on cross-sectional images using the Pieview program, this study evaluated the posterior superior alveolar artery on the 2K 2Monitor(ME511L 5MP-2H, Totoku, Tokyo, Japan).The results were as follows:1. The detection rates of the posterior superior alveolar arteries were 52.0% on CT images and the male group was higher than the female group in the detection rates(p<0.05).2. The mean diameter of the posterior superior alveolar artery was 1.52(±0.47) mm. When this study divided into three groups as the diameter, there were 13.9% in less 1 mm group, 64.9% in 1-2 mm group, and 21.2% in over 3 mm group(p<0.05).3. The posterior superior alveolar artery was located an average distance of 19.53 mm(±3.66 mm) from the alveolar crest in the premolar area and 16.52 mm(±4.20 mm) from the alveolar crest in the molar area. The distance from the posterior superior alveolar artery was similar between premolar and molar regions.This study found the detection rate of the male group was higher than that of the female group, and the diameter of the artery was mostly in 1-2 mm. The results indicated that the distance of the artery from premolar region and molar region was various but the distance in premolar region was longer than that in molar region.In addition, the results showed that the diameter and distance from alveolar crest of the posterior superior alveolar artery were reduced as getting old, but there was no significant difference in gender and age.