Translating tissue-engineered tracheal replacement from bench to bedside.
There are a variety of airway diseases with different clinical settings, which may extend from a surgical approach to total organ replacement. Tissue engineering involves modifying cells or tissues in order to repair, regenerate, or replace tissue in the body and seems to be a promising approach for airway replacement. The successful implantation of stem-cell-based tissue-engineered trachea in a young woman with end-stage post-tuberculosis left main bronchus collapse serves as a prototype for the airway tissue-engineered-based approach. The trachea indeed could represent a perfect model system to investigate the translational aspects of tissue engineering, largely due to its low-oxygen needs. This review highlights the anatomy of the airways, the various disease conditions that cause damage to the airways, elaborates on the essential components of the tissue-engineering approach, and discusses the success of the revolutionary trachea transplantation approach.
Kalathur
Madhuri
M
BIOAIR Lab, Department of General Thoracic and Regenerative Surgery and Intrathoracic Biotransplantation, University Hospital Careggi, Largo Brambilla 3, 50134, Florence, Italy.
Baiguera
Silvia
S
Macchiarini
Paolo
P
D019149:Bioreactors; D006801:Humans; D012038:Regeneration; D023822:Tissue Engineering / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D014132:Trachea / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology / Q000637:transplantation; D014133:Tracheal Diseases / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery; D014180:Transplantation / Q000379:methods*