Ricerc@Sapienza

The insertion of dental implants in the atrophic posterior maxilla can be a challenge. One option is to modify the residual native bone in preparation for proper, prosthetically-driven implant placement. The procedure presented in this study is called Navigated Antral Bone Expansion (N.A.B.E). This procedure employs the use of a navigation system to plan and guide the initial pilot drilling, bone expansion, final site preparation, and implant insertion.

A technology called Trace Registration (TR) has been introduced to allow dynamic navigation of implant placement without the need for a thermoplastic stent. This study was undertaken in order to validate the accuracy of the TR protocol for dynamically guided implant surgery. A retrospective, observational, in vivo study was performed using dynamic navigation via the TR protocol. The preoperative cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) plan was superimposed and registered (aligned) with the postoperative CBCT scan to assess accuracy parameters.