Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Tissue-engineered scaffold has become a research hotspot in recent years. Tissue-engineered vascular stents prepared by different biomaterials have their own characteristics. Post-implant biocompatibility, infection, and restenosis are the difficulties and important topics in clinic.
OBJECTIVE: To review the characteristics and biocompatibility of tissue-engineered vascular stents prepared by different biomaterials so as to find an ideal biomaterial stent in clinic.
METHODS: A computer based search of CNKI and PubMed was performed to find articles regarding biofilm resistance mechanisms published from 2002-01 to 2010-12. The keywords were “tissue engineering; stents; compatibility; infection, restenosis” in Chinese and English. Articles published recently or in authorized journals were preferred. Among 285 articles, only 23 met the requirement.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Natural materials containing biological information (such as special amino acid sequence) can promote cell adhesion or maintain the ability of cell differentiation. However, the advantages of artificial materials are their strength, degradation rate, microstructure and permeability that can be controlled in the production process. If biomaterials can be combined with polymer degradable materials according to a certain method to construct a composite matrix, this kind of composite matrix can play their two advantages and will be able to better meet the requirements of vascular tissue engineering to build a tissue-engineered vessel with good performance.