Introduction: Sinonasal anatomical anomalies and inflammatory conditions may reduce success rates of maxillary sinus elevation (MSE) procedures used to allow implant placement in the atrophic posterior maxilla. Approaches combining endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS) and MSE were firstly proposed by our group and have already been described in the literature. This article aims to re-evaluate the procedure in a larger sample of patients comparing results and indications with the pertaining literature.
Materials and methods: Thirty-three patients (19 men and 14 women, mean age 52.79 ± 11.95 years) underwent combined ESS/MSE with 48 MSE procedures performed.
Results: No intraoperative complications were reported. An uneventful and complete graft integration was obtained after 6 months in all but one patient. All patients completed prosthetic rehabilitation within 9 to 12 months.
Conclusion: Combined ESS and MSE has proven to be a safe and reliable procedure, which can be proposed to selected patients presenting with reversible sinonasal contraindications to MSE and should be no more considered an experimental procedure.