The removal of an implant beneath the optic canal by modified endoscopic-assisted sinus surgery

Abstract

Displacement of dental implants into the maxillary sinus is one of the rare complications during the implant surgery. However, it is always possible that clinicians confront with this unexpected result and patients should be informed ahead of maxillary implant surgery. For clinicians, it is important to be aware of how to deal with the complication, because the migrated implant must be removed as early as possible. There have been several classical ways to approach the maxillary sinus, such as the Caldwell-Luc procedure and endoscopic sinus surgery and these methods still have been chosen by many surgeons although quite a lot of complications exist. In this study, the author introduced a new sinus approach technique, modified endoscopic-assisted sinus surgery (MESS) as an efficient, easy and less complication-inducing sinus approach. A clinical case was described where a displaced dental implant beneath the optic nerve was successfully removed by MESS. Furthermore, essential considerations to avoid medical litigation and maintain close rapport with the patients were discussed when dealing with the case of displaced implant in the maxillary sinus.