Technische Aspekte in regenerativer Medizin und Tissue Engineering von hyalinem Gelenkknorpel

Abstract

The main problem in the treatment of orthopaedic joint-surface defects will be solved by tissue engineering of cartilage implants. Entire biological osteochondral implants can be grown from autologous cells of the patient. The nutrition of articular cartilage is by diffusion only. Therefore the chondrocyte as the unique cell type is perfectly dedicated to the tissue culture approach. Engineering techniques of bioreactors are prerequisite for these biological and medical solutions. With our tissue engineering project for the generation of osteochondral constructs we demonstrate possibilities and characteristics of bioreactors for the modification of cell culture techniques and mechanical conditioning of cartilage tissue for fully operable implants.

Nutrition and degeneration of articular cartilage

“…It is well known that articular cartilage can get nutrition from both SF and BM [24]. However, which pathway is more important to articular cartilage homeostasis is still in argument [12, 17].…”