Abstract:

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the application and compatibility of different fungible material of artificial esophagus for tissue engineering, and explore the curative effect on esophageal carcinoma of old patients after implantation, in order to find nonvolatile artificial implant material.
METHODS: Taking “gene chip, protein chip, artificial neural network, gastrointestinal cancer, diagnosis” in English and “tissue engineering esophagus, artificial esophagus, biocompatibility, esophageal carcinoma, diagnosis” in Chinese was utilized as search terms to retrieve PubMed database (2000-01/2010-09) and Wanfang database by the first author. Literatures related to tissue engineering esophageal research, evaluation of biocompatibility after artificial esophagus implantation and experimental analysis of different materials for tissue engineering esophagus were included. Duplicated articles were excluded. A total of 30 literatures were obtained for further summarization.
RESULTS: At present, the main complications of artificial esophagus including anastomotic fistula, narrow, necrosis, contraflow. Future research directions of artificial esophagus are mainly on construction and the choice of material. The main views were as followed: ①Ideal materials were selected and their suitable shape was constructed. ②The materials were cultured in vitro, and transplanted in vivo, then esophageal regeneration was induced. ③A biodegradable biological artificial esophagus with accurate control was developed, and then transplanted into organism and served as supporter, finally induced in vivo so as to regenerate newborn esophagus.
CONCLUSION: The research of tissue engineering esophagus toward the similar esophageal substitute with normal esophageal structure constructed by tissue engineering method, the choice of materials from a single biological inert materials to resorbable and degradable bioactive materials into a diversified research and development trends.