What Is a Sinus Lift?

A sinus lift, sometimes called a sinus augmentation, is a surgery that adds bone to your upper jaw in the space between your molars and premolars, which is also the space between your jaw and the maxillary sinuses on either side of your nose. To make room for the bone, the sinus membrane has to be moved upward, or “lifted,” which gives the surgery its name. A sinus lift is usually done by a dental specialist like an oral maxillofacial surgeon or a periodontist.

When Do You Need a Sinus Lift?

When your dental implants can’t be placed because you don’t have enough bone height in the upper jaw, or your sinuses are too close to the jaw, you will likely need a sinus lift. There are many reasons you might have experienced bone loss that causes your need for a sinus lift, some of which include:

• Bone loss from periodontal (gum) disease
• Lost teeth in your upper jaw – particularly your back teeth or molars
• Reabsorption of bone into the body due to tooth loss
• The maxillary sinus is too close to the upper jaw

Over the last 15 years, more people are getting dental implants to replace missing teeth, making sinus lifts more common.

We often find that the upper molar area (posterior maxilla) of the mouth has insufficient bone available for a dental implant to be fitted. This may be due to a previous infection that affected the failed tooth or teeth. It could also be because the tooth may have been removed some time ago and this is because in most patients the bone shrinks following tooth loss. One of the main reasons we recommend replacing teeth soon after having them removed is to prevent this unwanted healing process which results in bone loss.

If bone loss has occurred, we can still consider providing our patients with dental implants. In the upper molar regions we can utilise the space available in the maxillary sinuses to provide the patient with additional bone volume that will make it possible for them to have dental implants. The maxillary sinuses are large air spaces that everyone has around the region of the upper molar teeth. The large anatomical space in the sinuses is much larger than is needed for the healthy function of the airways and sinuses. For this reason, we can use some of this ‘extra’ space to increase the bone volume in patients who may lack sufficient bone in this part of their mouth. In most patients this is possible and it allows us to successfully provide patients with the treatment they need. The procedure is pain free and we have provided this successfully to many patients at our clinic.

Surgical procedure

There are various ways to carry out sinus graft surgery. They all begin with making an incision in the gum to expose the bone underneath.

Most commonly, the dentist cuts a small “window” into the bone and pushes it up to reveal the sinus cavity. The cavity membrane is lifted and the space below filled with granules of the bone graft material.

Then, the gum tissue is stitched back together.

The main risk of this surgery is the piercing or tearing of the membrane. In the rare event that this happens, it can be stitched or patched to repair it. Often the surgery can still continue as planned; in other cases the membrane must be given time to heal before the lift takes place.