Evaluation of the Position and Course of the Posterior Superior Alveolar Artery By Cone-Beam Computed Tomography in An Iranian Population

Background and aim: understanding the vascular anatomy of the maxillary sinus plays an important role in the success of sinus grafting and determining the location of lateral osteotomy. the aim of the present study was to localize the posterior superior alveolar artery (psaa) and to measure the distance from this vascular canal to the maxillary sinus floor and alveolar crest by cone-beam computed tomography (cbct). materials and methods: this study was conducted on 600 cbct scans. the distance from the inferior border of the psaa to the maxillary sinus floor and alveolar crest was measured and the position of this vascular canal was evaluated. the distance from the vascular canal to the maxillary sinus floor was also compared in dentulous and edentulous patients. the results were analyzed by repeated measures anova and tukey’s post-hoc test. results: the psaa was detected on 150 scans. the intraosseous position of the canal was seen in 51.30% of the cases. there were insignificant differences among the distances from the vascular canal to the maxillary sinus floor in different dental areas. however, there were significant differences in the distances from the vascular canal to the alveolar crest in different regions (p<0.001). conclusion: in this study, the psaa was detected in 25% of the cases. the smallest distance between the vascular canal and maxillary sinus floor was observed in the first premolar and first molar regions, respectively. determining the position of the psaa by cbct is useful for reducing perioperative bleeding; therefore, cbct is recommended as a routine imaging technique prior to sinus lifting.