ABSTRACT
Although both bone grafting and synthetic material reconstruction have been successful in many applications, their shortcomings have motivated a third approach to bone reconstruction, tissue engineering. Tissue engineering combines biologic regenerative factors, like stromal cells or growth factors, with biodegradable material scaffolds, like calcium phosphate ceramics and polylactic and polyglycolic acid polymers. The scaffold provides initial function but slowly degrades as healing bone tissue gradually takes over more function. In theory, tissue engineering provides the best of bone grafting and synthetic material reconstruction. Like synthetic reconstruction, tissue engineering requires no second surgical site and is not restricted by a limited amount of material. Like bone grafting, tissue engineering reproduces natural bone tissue that can adapt to functional demands.
