title: Cone beam computed tomography investigation of the antral artery anastomosis in a population of Central Italy.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The arterial vascular supply of maxillary sinus has to be considered in all the surgical procedures where it is involved. In particular, the intraosseous anastomosis between the posterior superior alveolar artery and the infraorbital artery branches in the bony canal can be tricky to a not well aware clinician. The aim of this study is to investigate the arterial blood supply of the maxillary sinus to give clinicians the basis for a better understanding of vascular complications that can derive from surgical procedures at this level.
  
  
  METHODS
  One hundred cone beam computed tomography were analysed by the Imaging software for three-dimensional images, i-Dixel 2.0. The parameters considered have been the presence (i), the calibre (ii), the dorso-ventral length (iii) and the cranio-caudal distance (iv). The data have been processed with means, standard deviations and verified by T-Student test.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The statistical outputs showed that the 38% of samples presented the intraosseous anastomosis. Those anastomosis resulted long in dorso-ventral way both on left (12.55 ± 4.3 mm) and right side (12.4 ± 4.3 mm). The mean cranio- -caudal distance resulted 15.71 ± 5.08 mm on the left and 14.73 ± 4.74 mm on right side. The calibre measurements resulted quite big as well: 1.68 ± 0.3 mm on the left and 1.54 ± 0.38 mm on the right. The differences between the right and left sides were found not statistically significant.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This in vivo investigation shows how a knowledge of the maxillary sinus vascularisation is essential during the programming surgical phase in order to prevent blood complications during the operations involving this region. (.
authors.affiliation: Department of Life, Health and Environmental Sciences, University of L'Aquila, L'Aquila, Italy. sara.bernardi@graduate.univaq.it.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bernardi
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mummolo
authors.forename: L M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Ciavarelli
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Li Vigni
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Continenza
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Marzo
mesh_terms: D000539:Alveolar Process; D000714:Anastomosis, Surgical; D001158:Arteries; D054893:Cone-Beam Computed Tomography; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy
keywords: anastomosis; infraortbital artery; posterior superior alveolar artery; sinus vascularisation