Journal of Experimental Orthopaedics (Jan 2018)

Scaffold-free tissue engineering for injured joint surface restoration

  • Kazunori Shimomura,
  • Wataru Ando,
  • Hiromichi Fujie,
  • David A. Hart,
  • Hideki Yoshikawa,
  • Norimasa Nakamura

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40634-017-0118-0
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 5, no. 1
pp. 1 – 14

Abstract

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Abstract Articular cartilage does not heal spontaneously due to its limited healing capacity, and thus effective treatments for cartilage injuries has remained challenging. Since the first report by Brittberg et al. in 1994, autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI) has been introduced into the clinic. Recently, as an alternative for chondrocyte-based therapy, mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-based therapy has received considerable research attention because of the relative ease in handling for tissue harvest, and subsequent cell expansion and differentiation. In this review, we discuss the latest developments regarding stem cell-based therapies for cartilage repair, with special focus on recent scaffold-free approaches.

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