Intralift™ is a newly developed surgical procedure to increase missing bone substance in the upper jaw. Longer-term edentulism in the upper jaw can cause the alveolar ridge in the posterior area to regress to such an extent that the bone below the maxillary sinus is too low to insert implants. In this case, it is necessary to add bone (a so-called sinus lift). Here, the mucosa of the maxillary sinus is lifted, bone replacement material is inserted in the newly created cavity and then implanted in the newly developed bone either at the same time or after a healing phase of (4-6 months).

The usual method (open sinus lift modified according to Tatum) is cutting a window to the maxillary sinus in the posterior maxillary sinus cavity and detaching the mucosa from the base and the walls using handheld instruments. The trauma for the patient is relatively high with this method and generally associated with severe swelling and often pain and bruising of the cheek (hematoma). Intralift™ was developed by Dr. Wainwright and two other colleagues in 2007 as a minimally invasive ultrasonic-based procedure.

This process does not use rotating instruments, which involves a high risk of injuring the soft tissue and works with high-frequency oscillatory instruments, minimizing the risk of injuring sensitive structures. The posterior maxillary sinus cavity is also not required with Intralift™ – this minimizes the postoperative discomfort to almost zero and swelling and pain are extremely rare with this procedure. By leaving the bone structures and using “key-hole surgery”, comparable with modern knee surgery without large incisions, the bone can form more quickly and in many cases, implants can be inserted immediately. Any amount of bone can be completely reconstructed with this procedure. It completely avoids the use of the body’s own bone.

Intralift™ procedure

Schematische Darstellung des Intralift™–Verfahrens
The precise instruments, the small instrument size (approx. 3 mm) and the fact that ultrasonic frequency even stimulates the formation of new bone (study conducted by the University of North Carolina, Dr. Nares), make the Intralift™ procedure safe and almost pleasant for the patient with high chances of success. The Intralift™ procedure is patented and used all over the world and has the potential to replace the usual method of the “open” sinus lift