Application of tissue engineering in paediatric

Abstract

The aim of this work is to review the current state of the use of tissue engineering in the field of pediatric surgery. We conducted a search of articles in PubMed under the terms of “Pediatric Surgery AND Tissue Engineering”. All those articles that included in the name of the journal and / or of the article any of the following terms were selected: “bioengineered”, “engineering”, “pediatric”, “children” “pediatric surgery”; In addition to those articles resulting from this same search, which, in our opinion, should be included in our review because they also deal with issues related to tissue engineering applied to disciplines that are part of the daily healthcare task of a pediatric surgeon. 178 articles were obtained. After carrying out a first review, we eliminated those referring to the applications of tissue engineering in cardiovascular surgery, traumatology, dentistry, and otorhinolaryngology, as they are specialties not included within pediatric surgery in our setting. Finally, 117 articles distributed as follows were reviewed: 36 on the area of ​​general surgery (6 bibliographic reviews, 30 experimental), 26 plastic surgery (3 clinical trials, 15 experimental, 8 bibliographic reviews), 33 urology (26 experimental, 7 bibliographic reviews), 22 cleft palate (1 clinical trial, 13 experimental, 8 bibliographic reviews). There are many works related to tissue engineering and its application to pediatric surgery and, although in the theoretical panorama tissue engineering promises to be a hopeful therapeutic alternative in many pathologies included within this specialty, and although there are multiple experimental studies that suggest a hopeful application in the clinic, there are few works that deal with its real application in pediatric patients.