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A 57-year-old Italian woman who visited her doctor complaining of facial pain was found to have a dental implant in her left sinus.Two years earlier, she'd had the dental implant – a 2cm long metal screw which is used to hold a false tooth in place - inserted into her upper jaw.
But a CT scan revealed it had migrated to her sinuses.
A 57-year-old woman who visited her doctor with recurrent inflammation of the sinuses and facial pain was found to have a dental implant in her left sinus (pictured)
At the time, there were no complications but when the woman’s sinus problems were investigated, the implant was found to be missing from her jaw.
Doctors also discovered that her gum had healed over and there was no sign of the implant.
It was eventually tracked down in her sinus – a cavity beside the eye - and removed during surgery.
Following the surgery, the 57-year-old patient found that her symptoms improved rapidly.
She attended a check-up eight months later and still had no symptoms.
Further tests also showed that her sinus had returned to normal and no lasting damage had been done.
Surgeons used a camera to track down the screw in her sinus (pictured) and then removed it. Once it has been removed, her symptoms rapidly disappeared
It is thought the problem may have occurred as a result of the implant being improperly positioned in her jaw.
Study researcher Alberto Schreiber, of the University of Brescia in Italy, told LiveScience that he believes the implant was probably in the woman's sinus for at least a year, and perhaps even since the surgery two years earlier.
He added that other cases of dental implants ending up in the sinus have been reported.
The 2cm metal implant (pictured) was implanted into the woman's upper jaw two years before it was found in her sinus. These implants are usually used to stabilise a bridge or false tooth
Luke Cascarini, a consultant oral and maxillofacial surgeon at The London Clinic, told MailOnline: ‘When the implant is inserted, if it doesn’t fully integrate, it can migrate either to the surface or to a sinus as it is treated as a foreign body.
‘If it doesn’t fully integrate then the body sees it as a foreign object and dispels it. Usually it would dispel it into the mouth.’
He went on to explain that the implant would only have been able to migrate if it was not attached to a bridge or false tooth and that this is rare.
The case was reported in The New England Journal of Medicine.
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