The Impact of Maxillary Sinus Pneumatization on the Quality of the Alveolar Bone in Dentated and Edentulous Patients: A Cone-Beam Computed Tomography Radiographic Analysis.

Background This study aimed to describe the morphometric differences of maxillary alveolar bone's height, width, and densitometric differences in the posterior region where maxillary sinus pneumatization occurred. Methodology A cross-sectional, cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) study used 123 CBCT images as a non-randomized convenient sample of sinus pneumatized cases. Bone height, bone width (in mm), and average density of the remaining ridge of all patients were used as study variables. Analysis of the qualitative variables were as frequency and percentages. Parametric Student's t-test and non-parametric chi-squared tests were used to compare the groups. The significance level was set at a p-value ≤0.05. Results The sample included CBCT radiographs for patients who had a mean age of 42.79 ± 12.32 with males constituting 69 (56.1%) of the patients. There was no gender difference between the present and missing teeth at the measured sites of the first premolar, second premolar, first molar, and second molar (p > 0.05). The mean measurements of height and average bone density were significantly higher in the dentate sites; however, the mean width was higher in the edentulous sites (p = 0.001). Conclusions Average bone height and density were significantly decreased at the edentulous sites of sinus pneumatized cases than the dentate sites with no gender difference.