Maxillary surgical ciliated cysts following advancement Le Fort I osteotomy with concomitant autogenous bone grafting: a simple coincidence or a cause-effect relationship?

Surgical ciliated cysts (SCCs) are rare benign lesions that have been described after radical maxillary sinus surgery such as a Caldwell-Luc procedure for chronic sinusitis. They usually occur several years following surgery, and they typically present as an evolving swelling in the maxillary sulcus and cheek area. The pathogenetic mechanism is related to the entrapment of respiratory epithelium from the paranasal sinuses and/or the nose within the wound created by the surgical procedures. Radiologically, SCCs manifest as a well-demarcated, unilocular or multilocular radiolucency and histologically are lined by respiratory epithelium. Enucleation remains the treatment of choice. Since the 1990s, cases of SCCs have also been described following orthognathic surgery and developing not only within the maxilla but also surprisingly within the mandible. We report here three unique cases of patients with postoperative maxillary cysts following Le Fort I advancement osteotomy with concomitant inter-positional gap autogenous bone grafting.