Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Treatment measures for tendon injury experience a long process from traditional physical therapy, drug therapy to modern tissue engineering artificial ligament reconstruction.
OBJECTIVE: To review the role of biological materials as artificial intervention in the treatment of tendon adhesion, and to explore the action mechanism.
METHODS: VIP database, Wanfang database, and PubMed (1990-01/2011-04) were searched for articles related to tendon rehabilitation measures and biomaterials using the keywords of “tendon, treatment, materials, adhesive” in Chinese and English. Articles related to materials for tendon treatment were retrieved, and those published recently or in authorized journals were preferred. Totally 287 articles were checked, and according to inclusion criteria 21 articles were reviewed.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Artificial ligament reconstruction and regeneration provides a chance and security for the treatment and rehabilitation of severe tendon injury. But the ideal artificial ligament material selection and development becomes the key. Synthetic materials can avoid the single material performance deficiencies, which provide a broad space for material development. At present, gene therapy technology development for tendon tissue engineering provides a new research direction. In addition, tendon adhesion often occurs during the treatment, and seriously affects the therapeutic effect. Tendon adhesion and healing has important relationship with the physiology and pathology of the tendon. Biomaterials as an adhesion prevention barrier have the vast developmental foreground.