Abstract
Bone tissue engineering is an emerging interdisciplinary field in Science, combining expertise in medicine, material science and biomechanics. Hard tissue engineering research is focused mainly in two areas, osteo and dental clinical applications. There is a lot of exciting research being performed worldwide in developing novel scaffolds for tissue engineering. Although, nowadays the majority of the research effort is in the development of scaffolds for non-load bearing applications, primarily using soft natural or synthetic polymers or natural scaffolds for soft tissue engineering; metallic scaffolds aimed for hard tissue engineering have been also the subject of in vitro and in vivo research and industrial development. In this article, descriptions of the different manufacturing technologies available to fabricate metallic scaffolds and a compilation of the reported biocompatibility of the currently developed metallic scaffolds have been performed. Finally, we highlight the positive aspects and the remaining problems that will drive future research in metallic constructs aimed for the reconstruction and repair of bone.
Highlights
Human skeletal tissues have complex three-dimensional (3-D) geometries and highly organized internal architectures, which cannot be emulated by cells maintained in two-dimensions
Porous metallic scaffolds are used in tissue engineering to replace damaged hard tissues in order to restore its functionality
For the long-term replacement of bone defects porous metallic scaffolds offer the advantage of interfacial porosity as well as permanent structural framework
Summary
Human skeletal tissues have complex three-dimensional (3-D) geometries and highly organized internal architectures, which cannot be emulated by cells maintained in two-dimensions. Bone is a complex porous composite structure with specific characteristics such as viscoelasticity and anisotropy, both in morphology and mechanical properties [1]. Porous scaffolds are central to hard tissue engineering strategies because they provide a 3-D framework for delivering reparative cells or regenerative factors in an organized manner to repair or regenerate damaged tissues. We will summarize the progress and the state-of-the-art of the metallic scaffolds as well as the reported biocompatibility of each of these metallic structures that has been conceived to be used in specific reconstruction of small or large bone defects. The design of a hard tissue-engineered scaffold logically begins with an intensive characterization of the host tissue properties. The properties of bone and how these apply to the design of a synthetic scaffold are discussed below
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