Reconstruction of Vascular and Urologic Tubular Grafts by Tissue Engineering

Abstract

Tissue engineering is one of the most promising scientific breakthroughs of the late 20th century. Its objective is to produce in vitro tissues or organs to repair and replace damaged ones using various techniques, biomaterials, and cells. Tissue engineering emerged to substitute the use of native autologous tissues, whose quantities are sometimes insufficient to correct the most severe pathologies. Indeed, the patient’s health status, regulations, or fibrotic scars at the site of the initial biopsy limit their availability, especially to treat recurrence. This new technology relies on the use of biomaterials to create scaffolds on which the patient’s cells can be seeded. This review focuses on the reconstruction, by tissue engineering, of two types of tissue with tubular structures: vascular and urological grafts. The emphasis is on self-assembly methods which allow the production of tissue/organ substitute without the use of exogenous material, with the patient’s cells producing their own scaffold. These continuously improved techniques, which allow rapid graft integration without immune rejection in the treatment of severely burned patients, give hope that similar results will be observed in the vascular and urological fields.