Sinus Lift Procedure

Sinus Lift Procedure

When teeth are missing in the back of the upper jaw, the sinus air spaces can play an important part in treatment planning.  Once a tooth has been removed, the bone height shrinks, which can result in a sinus bone graft being required before an implant can be placed.

This involves a small surgical procedure under local anaesthetic (freezing the gum).  Access is gained through the gum into the sinus and this allows bone graft material to be placed.  We use an ultra-purified animal-derived product which originates from bovine (cow) bone.  It has been used across the world for over 20 years, on more than 10 million patients and is considered completely safe.  It acts as a temporary scaffold allowing your own bone to repair and regenerate itself.  The bone graft material is covered by another animal-derived product which is porcine (pig) collagen and this protects the bone graft for the first few weeks while it is healing and is essential for successful regeneration of the missing bone.  There are alternatives if you choose not to have animal products, but the scientific literature strongly supports this group of materials as the “gold standard”.

The graft provides the required bone material to allow for implant placement and needs between 5 and 9 months to heal, before the implant can then be placed as a separate procedure.

On some occasions, where there is still some height of bone remaining, implant placement can be completed at the same time as the sinus graft.  This has the advantage of only requiring a single operation and usually a shorter healing period of between 4 and 6 months.