Clinical significance of maxillary sinus hypoplasia in dentistry: A CBCT study

The anatomy of the maxillary sinus is especially important for dentists due to the close proximity of the sinus to the maxillary posterior teeth.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the frequency of maxillary sinus pathology, anatomical variations, and the relationship between the tooth roots and the maxillary sinus by comparing a group with maxillary sinus hypoplasia (MSH) and a control group using cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT).

In the study, 69 CBCT images of 50 patients with MSH and 84 CBCT images of 49 patients without MSH were evaluated for pathology, and the presence of an accessory ostium, a septum and Haller cells in each maxillary sinus.

The coincidence of pathology with MSH was 29%, and with non-hypoplastic maxillary sinuses it was 44% (p = 0.055). An accessory ostium was found in 14.5% of scans with MSH and in 39.3% of those without MSH (p = 0.001). Haller cells were found in 2.9% of the MSH cases, whereas their incidence in the control group was 23.8% (p = 0.000). The occurrence of a sinus septum was at the level of 4.3% in the group with MSH and 23.8% in the group without MSH (p = 0.001).

The incidence of the relationship between the sinus wall and the posterior root apices was found smaller in the dentulous MSH patients. Also, the distance between the root apices and the sinus wall was longer in the dentulous MSH patients, and the vertical and horizontal alveolar bone was larger in the posteriorly edentulous MSH patients.