Is it safe and effective to extract impacted maxillary tooth adjacent to maxillary sinus via submaxillary sinus membrane space approach?—a randomized controlled trial

Objective To evaluate the clinical outcomes following extraction of impacted maxillary tooth adjacent to maxillary via submaxillary sinus membrane space approach. Materials and methods Seventy-two patients were enrolled in our study. The positions of the maxillary impacted tooth were confirmed by cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT). Cases were randomly divided into two groups: the “submaxillary sinus membrane space approach” was applied in the new method (NM) group, and the conventional “avoid maxillary sinus membrane exposure” strategy was executed in the traditional method (TM) group. The clinical and follow-up data were recorded. Results The duration of the procedure in the TM group was significantly longer than those in the NM group ( P