Patient-Reported Outcomes After Lateral Wall Sinus Floor Elevation: A Systematic Review

Area of Science:

• Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
• Periodontology
• Dental Implantology

Background:

• Sinus lift procedures are common in dental implantology to augment maxillary bone.
• Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) provide valuable insights into the patient experience after surgical interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically review and assess patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) following lateral approach sinus lift elevation.
• To synthesize findings on various PROMs including pain, edema, functional abilities, and overall oral health impact.

Main Methods:

• An extensive electronic literature search identified relevant publications on PROMs after lateral wall sinus lift.
• Eleven studies were selected based on predefined inclusion/exclusion criteria after full-text analysis of 98 articles.
• PROMs evaluated included pain, edema, ability to eat/work/sleep, phonetics, daily activities, bleeding, bruising, bad breath, patient preference, and the Oral Health Impact Profile-14 (OHIP-14).

Main Results:

• A peak in patient-reported discomfort was generally observed on postoperative day 1, followed by a gradual decrease.
• While severe morbidity or discomfort was reported, it did not affect the majority of patients.
• Various evaluation methods were used, including scales and questionnaires, with differing time points for assessment.

Conclusions:

• Patient-reported outcomes following lateral sinus lift procedures generally show improvement after the initial postoperative period.
• Most patients experience manageable discomfort, indicating the procedure's relative safety from a patient perspective.
• Further standardization of PROMs and evaluation time points could enhance future research in this area.