Vascularization in Bone Tissue Engineering: Physiology, Current Strategies, Major Hurdles and Future Challenges

Abstract

16 páginas, 3 figuras, 2 tablas.The lack of a functional vascular supply has, to a large extent, hampered the whole range of clinical applications of ‘successful’ laboratory-based bone tissue engineering strategies. To the present, grafts have been dependent on post-implant vascularization, which jeopardizes graft integration and often leads to its failure. For this reason, the development of strategies that could effectively induce the establishment of a microcirculation in the engineered constructs has become a major goal for the tissue engineering research community. This review addresses the role and importance of the development of a vascular network in bone tissue engineering and provides an overview of the most up to date research efforts to develop such a network.M. I. Santos would like to acknowledge the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for her Ph.D. grant (SFRH/BD/13428/2003). This work was partially supported by FCT through funds from POCTI and/or FEDER programs and by the European Union funded STREP Project HIPPOCRATES (NMP3-CT-2003-505758). This work was carried out under the scope of the European NoE EXPERTISSUES (NMP3-CT-2004-500283).Peer reviewe