ABSTRACT
The need for improved vascular grafts, particularly in small diameter applications, is clear. Preferred materials include biologically appropriate and active conduits, which often incorporate living cells. There has been a great deal of progress in producing such living vascular tissues, as evidenced by the increasing number of implantation studies in both animal and human systems. This entry reviews scaffolding strategies in vascular tissue engineering and describes techniques for producing a blood vessel substitute. The approaches are divided into those using synthetic polymer scaffolds (both permanent and degradable), those using naturally derived polymer scaffolds, and those using cell-secreted scaffolds.
