title: Are synthetic scaffolds suitable for the development of clinical tissue-engineered tubular organs?
abstract: Transplantation of tissues and organs is currently the only available treatment for patients with end-stage diseases. However, its feasibility is limited by the chronic shortage of suitable donors, the need for life-long immunosuppression, and by socioeconomical and religious concerns. Recently, tissue engineering has garnered interest as a means to generate cell-seeded three-dimensional scaffolds that could replace diseased organs without requiring immunosuppression. Using a regenerative approach, scaffolds made by synthetic, nonimmunogenic, and biocompatible materials have been developed and successfully clinically implanted. This strategy, based on a viable and ready-to-use bioengineered scaffold, able to promote novel tissue formation, favoring cell adhesion and proliferation, could become a reliable alternative to allotransplatation in the next future. In this article, tissue-engineered synthetic substitutes for tubular organs (such as trachea, esophagus, bile ducts, and bowel) are reviewed, including a discussion on their morphological and functional properties.
authors.affiliation: University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Department of Industrial Engineering, Intrauniversitary Consortium for Material Science and Technology (INSTM), Research Unit Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Costantino
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Del Gaudio
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Baiguera
authors.forename: Fatemeh
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ajalloueian
authors.forename: Alessandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bianco
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Macchiarini
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D023822:Tissue Engineering; D054457:Tissue Scaffolds; D014180:Transplantation
keywords: in vitro and in vivo evaluation; organs and tissues; synthetic biomaterials; tissue engineering