2021 Volume 34 Issue 4 Pages 276-285
The survival rates of dental implants in the sinus lift area are equivalent to those in existing bone. Thus, the sinus lift procedure has been established as an effective bone augmentation technique for implant placement in the posterior maxilla. As the maxillary sinus lift procedure has become more common, the number of complications and problems has increased. One reason is that surgeons can easily perform sinus lift surgery without understanding the degree of its difficulty and without sufficiently acquiring the necessary diagnostic capabilities and techniques. To improve the predictability of the sinus lift procedure, it is necessary to not only sufficiently perform preoperative examination, diagnosis, and treatment planning, but also understand the degree of difficulty of the procedure and perform it accordingly. This article presents the ST classification (Toshiro Sugai's classification) of sinus lift surgery by CT imaging, and describes the surgical procedures to improve the safety and predictability of the sinus lift procedure according to the ST classification.
