Chin bone harvesting for autogenous grafting in the maxillary sinus: a clinical report

The sinus lift has become a common dental procedure when insufficient bone exists to support endosseous dental implants. The goal of the procedure is to augment existing bone in the posterior maxilla. Various resorbable and nonresorbable allograft, xenograft, and synthetic materials and mixtures, with and without autogenous bone, have been used for sinus augmentation. The authors prefer a mixture of autogenous bone with resorbable bovine xenograft, utilizing as much autogenous bone as possible. The chin offers an ideal site for bone harvesting because of its advantages over other potential sites, such as iliac crest, rib, and calvarium. These advantages include ease of accessibility, relatively simple office-based surgery, minimal morbidity, and the benefits of utilizing intramembranous versus endochondral bone. This article describes the harvesting and the sinus lift procedures. The learning objective of this article is to present this particular procedure using a clinical report to illustrate.