Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Urological tissue engineering technology has brought a new hope for microinvasive repair and functional reconstruction of urinary tract tissues and organs. In recent years, many studies addressing tissue-engineered scaffolds for the urinary system and tissue-engineered tissues such as the kidney, ureter, bladder, and urethra have been reported.
OBJECTIVE: To summarize the application of tissue-engineered scaffolds in the repair of urinary system injuries.
METHODS: A computer-based search of Wanfang databases (http://med.wanfangdata.com.cn/) from January 1998 to December 2010 was performed by using keywords “ureter, bladder, urethra, scaffold materials, tissue engineering”. Papers addressing preparation of biomaterial scaffolds for the urinary system and tissue-engineered scaffolds for repair of urinary system injuries were included. Repetitive and old papers were excluded. Finally, 41 articles were included in result analysis.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Recently, there is a rapid progress in tissue-engineered scaffold materials for the urinary system, including natural extracellular matrix, such as collagen, proteoglycan, glycoprotein, etc.; extracellular matrix derivatives, such as extracellular matrix of the bladder, urethra, extracellular matrix, small intestine Lower, etc.; synthetic polymers, such as polyglycolic acid, polylactic acid and so on. These kinds of materials have a similar network structure, biomechanical properties, and part of active factors to human body. It is beneficial for epithelial cells and smooth muscle cells to play a physiological function if the cells growth on these kinds of scaffolds. The urological tissue engineering technology, currently, is at a critical stage from basic studies to clinical applications.