Innovative Biomaterials in Bone Tissue Engineering

Abstract

Currently, the transplant crisis is one of the main concerns in the healthcare systems all over the world, the lack of donors and the persons which are on the waiting list for a transplant being higher from year to year. The diseases at the bone tissue level are affecting about 75M in USA, Europe and Japan, the need of treatments in this field becoming clear. During the last decades, the USA spent more than 20 billion dollars on treatments for bone trauma and more than 300.000 spinal fusions were conducted only in 2005. Moreover, the International Osteoporosis Foundation stated that the number of hip fractures may increase by four by 2050. Therefore, considering the data reported for the last decades and the predictions made for the near future, there are two main directions which must be considered: the drawbacks of the current treatments and the economic impact of the available options. In this regards, Tissue Engineering is relatively new field in the regenerative medicine area, which aims to develop cost-effective alternatives for different diseases/trauma in order to restore the function of a tissue and to undertake the transplant crisis.