Application of tissue engineering scaffolds in neural repair / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND:Tissue engineering scaffolds can create proper nerve regeneration microenvironment, enrich nutritional factors for nerve regeneration and promote axonal growth. OBJECTIVE:To review the progress of tissue engineering scaffolds in nerve repair in recent years. METHODS:A computer-based retrieval was performed to search ful-text articles addressing tissue engineering scaffolds used to repair nerve damage published from 2009 to 2014 in PubMed databases using the keywords of “nerve regeneration, prostheses and implants” as wel as articles published from 2004 to 2014 in CNKI database using the keywords of “nerve repair, material” in Chinese. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Currently, scaffold materials for nerve damage mainly include natural materials, naturaly derived materials, synthetic materials and composites, al of which have their own advantages and disadvantages. By chemical crosslinkers or chemical modification, the naturaly derived polymer can be combined with other natural or synthetic composite materials, to improve their physicochemical and biological properties, i.e., the composite scaffolds have better effects than single materials in nerve regeneration. Therefore the current research focus is composite materials. In clinical research, colagen scaffold for nerve repair has entered the clinical research stage.