Abstract:

BACKGROUND: The development of tissue engineering provides a new approach for the repair and reconstruction of meniscal injuries, it is important to construct a functional meniscus using this technology for the prevention of complications after meniscectomy.
OBJECTIVE: To summarize the feasibility and characteristics of tissue engineering materials in the repair of sports meniscal injury.
METHODS: A computer-based search of PubMed and CNKI databases from 1990 to 2010 was performed by the first author for articles about natural biomaterials, synthetic materials, nano-materials in repair of meniscal injury. English key words are “meniscus, sports injuries, repair, tissue engineering, material”, Chinese key words are “meniscus, sports injury, repair, tissue engineering, scaffold materials”.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Due to the blood supply characteristics of the meniscus, meniscal injury in the avascular zone is not able to heal. The development of tissue engineering provides a new approach for the repair and reconstruction of meniscal injury. The currently used scaffolds for meniscal injury repair include natural biomaterials, synthetic materials, nano-materials and so on. Tissue engineering meniscus research has yielded progressive results, but the scaffold studies are in the experimental stage, there is no an ideal material, thus a scaffold with good cell compatibility, controllable degradation rate and mechanical strength is still a research hotspot of meniscus tissue engineering.