Treatment of an atrophied maxilla 1 January 2013

Authors: Hadi Antoun, Patrick Laforge
Journal and references: IMPLANT 2013; 19:349-362

The complete edentulous maxilla offset by a removable prosthesis often represents a serious handicap for our patients; the physical and psychological discomfort lead them to consider an implant as a solution to improve their situation.

Although subject to the patient's health status, implantology is nowadays an ideal solution for treating a partial dentition or an edentulous patient.
Yet, a lack of bone volume constitutes a limit to our treatments and the use of bone grafting protocols should be considered if the patient's demand is moving towards a fixed prosthesis. These borderline situations, where bone resorption has reached extreme levels, complicate and lengthen treatment plans; it is then our responsibility to make the right choices about treatment options and to optimize our treatment plans to bring the desired results to the patient without unnecessarily increasing the duration of treatment while minimizing the risk of complications.

The use of autogenous bone blocks and the immediate loading of 6 or 8 implants will meet this optimization and simplification of our treatments. This article describes and discusses in detail the various surgical and prosthetic procedures when treating an atrophied maxilla.

Read the complete article: here