Tissue engineering of the temporomandibular joint disc: current status and future trends.
BACKGROUND
Temporomandibular joint disorders are extremely prevalent and there is no ideal treatment clinically for the moment. For severe cases, a discectomy often need to be performed, which will further result in the development of osteoarthritis. In the past thirty years, tissue engineering has provided a promising approach for the effective remedy of severe TMJ disease through the creation of viable, effective, and biological functional implants.


METHODS
Although TMJ disc tissue engineering is still in early stage, unremitting efforts and some achievements have been made over the past decades. In this review, a comprehensive summary of the available literature on the progress and status in tissue engineering of the TMJ disc regarding cell sources, scaffolds, biochemical and biomechanical stimuli, and other prospects relative to this field is provided.


CONCLUSIONS
Even though research studies in this field are too few compared to other fibrocartilage (e.g., knee meniscus) and numerous, difficult tasks still exist, we believe that our ultimate goal of regenerating a biological implant whose histological, biochemical, and biomechanical properties parallel native TMJ discs for clinical therapy will be achieved in the near future.
2 Department of Prosthodontics, Lanzhou Stomatological Hospital, Lanzhou, Gansu - China.
Weina
W
Shu
Lin
L
Liu
Guangjie
G
Bao
Hong
H
Kang
D000818:Animals; D019643:Arthroplasty, Replacement / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000639:trends*; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D001705:Bioprosthesis / Q000639:trends*; D017690:Cell Transplantation / Q000639:trends; D004059:Diffusion of Innovation; D017586:Diskectomy; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D007595:Joint Prosthesis / Q000639:trends*; D040542:Mechanotransduction, Cellular; D011474:Prosthesis Design / Q000639:trends; D020127:Recovery of Function; D019224:Temporomandibular Joint Disc / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery*; D013705:Temporomandibular Joint Disorders / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery*; D023822:Tissue Engineering / Q000639:trends*; D054457:Tissue Scaffolds / Q000639:trends