title: Breast tissue engineering.
abstract: Tissue engineering has the potential to redefine rehabilitation for the breast cancer patient by providing a translatable strategy that restores the postmastectomy breast mound while concomitantly obviating limitations realized with contemporary reconstructive surgery procedures. The engineering design goal is to provide a sufficient volume of viable fat tissue based on a patient's own cells such that deficits in breast volume can be abrogated. To be sure, adipose tissue engineering is in its infancy, but tremendous strides have been made. Numerous studies attest to the feasibility of adipose tissue engineering. The field is now poised to challenge barriers to clinical translation that are germane to most tissue engineering applications, namely scale-up, large animal model development, and vascularization. The innovative and rapid progress of adipose engineering to date, as well as opportunities for its future growth, is presented.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Reparative Biology & Bioengineering, Department of Plastic Surgery, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and The University of Texas Center for Biomedical Engineering, Houston, Texas 77030, USA. cpatrick@mdanderson.org
authors.forename: Charles W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Patrick
mesh_terms: D017667:Adipocytes; D000273:Adipose Tissue / Q000473:pathology; D000818:Animals; D001940:Breast / Q000473:pathology / Q000502:physiology*; D018427:Breast Implants; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D016462:Mammaplasty / Q000379:methods*; D042361:Mammary Glands, Human / Q000502:physiology; D019651:Plastic Surgery Procedures / Q000379:methods; D023822:Tissue Engineering / Q000379:methods*