Biomaterials, substitutes, and tissue engineering in bone repair: current and future concepts

AbstractBone is a complex, constantly changing organ comprised of mineralized hard tissue. This important structural component of vertebrate ’s body serves a variety of functions. Healthy bone system is essential for lifelong execution of these functions. Millions of people worldwide suffer from bone defects due to various reasons, including trauma, tumor, bone diseases, congenital defects, and aging. These defects are increasingly bec oming the majority of the clinical cases in orthopedics. For all the aforementioned cases in which the normal process of bone regeneration is either impaired or simply insufficient, there are currently a number of treatment methods available which can be used either alone or in combination for the e nhancement of bone healing and regeneration. Accordingly, bone repair has been the focus of many research activities related to clinical therapies. The traditional bone repair procedure widely used in current era involves the use of bone-grafting methods such as autografts, allografts, and xenograft s; however, these methods are associated with number of limitations. Therefore, to overcome these problems, tissue engineering as a new and developing option had been introduced recently. In order to provide ideal bone substitutes, a wide range of biomaterials and synthetic bone substitutes are avai lable depending on the goal, each has advantages and disadvantages. The combined use of different bone substitutes together with healing promotive factors,...
Source: Comparative Clinical Pathology - Category: Pathology Source Type: research