Additive Manufacturing of Nerve Guidance Conduits for Regeneration of Injured Peripheral Nerves

Shaochen Song; Xuejie Wang; Tiejun Wang; Qinghua Yu; Zheyu Hou; Zhe Zhu; Rui Li

doi:10.3389/fbioe.2020.590596

Additive Manufacturing of Nerve Guidance Conduits for Regeneration of Injured Peripheral Nerves

Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2020 Sep 25:8:590596. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2020.590596. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Shaochen Song¹, Xuejie Wang¹, Tiejun Wang², Qinghua Yu³, Zheyu Hou³, Zhe Zhu¹, Rui Li¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Hand Surgery, The Second Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, China.
² Department of Orthopaedic Traumatology, The First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, China.
³ Department of Burn Surgery, The First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, China.

Abstract

As a common and frequent clinical disease, peripheral nerve defect has caused a serious social burden, which is characterized by poor curative effect, long course of treatment and high cost. Nerve autografting is first-line treatment of peripheral nerve injuries (PNIs) but can result in loss of function of the donor site, neuroma formation, and prolonged operative time. Nerve guidance conduit (NGC) serves as the most promising alternative to autologous transplantation, but its production process is complicated and it is difficult to effectively combine growth factors and bioactive substances. In recent years, additive manufacturing of NGCs has effectively solved the above problems due to its simple and efficient manufacturing method, and it can be used as the carrier of bioactive substances. This review examines recent advances in additive manufacture of NGCs for PNIs as well as insight into how these approaches could be improved in future studies.

Keywords: additive manufacturing; biomaterial; nerve guidance conduit; nerve regeneration; peripheral nerve.

Publication types

Review