Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Due to the abilities of self-update and reconstruction capacities, as well as excellent performance of biomechanics, tissue-engineered ligament overcomes the deficiency of existing man-made ligaments, and is expected to become ideal substitute. It has already become the focus of ligament reconstruction surgery field.
OBJECTIVE: To analyze and summarize the studies regarding the injured ligament repaired by cultured composite scaffolds since 1998, and to find suitable new scaffold materials for tissue engineered ligament and their applicable standards.
METHODS: Using “ligament, tissue engineering, scaffold materials, extracellular matrix” in Chinese and in English as the key words, a computer retrieval was performed in VIP Periodical Full-Text Database and PubMed Database for articles on tissue-engineered ligament from January 1998 to December 2009. Literatures of irrelevant objective and repetitive content were excluded. Thirty-two literatures were involved in further analysis.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: There are many studies about the treatments of ligaments and tendons injury, but it is very difficult to repair, reconstruct or completely recover pre-injury function. Tissue engineered ligament provides an ideal treatment for injured ligaments and tendons. There are an increasing number of researches reported tissue engineered scaffolds materials, however, each of them has benefits and shortcomings, and a majority of reports are in studies yet. Currently an ideal scaffold for tissue engineered ligament is still needed to treat injured ligaments and tendons.