The current status of various preclinical therapeutic approaches for tendon repair

Ann Med. 2024 Dec;56(1):2337871. doi: 10.1080/07853890.2024.2337871. Epub 2024 May 13.

Abstract

Tendons are fibroblastic structures that link muscle and bone. There are two kinds of tendon injuries, including acute and chronic. Each form of injury or deterioration can result in significant pain and loss of tendon function. The recovery of tendon damage is a complex and time-consuming recovery process. Depending on the anatomical location of the tendon tissue, the clinical outcomes are not the same. The healing of the wound process is divided into three stages that overlap: inflammation, proliferation, and tissue remodeling. Furthermore, the curing tendon has a high re-tear rate. Faced with the challenges, tendon injury management is still a clinical issue that must be resolved as soon as possible. Several newer directions and breakthroughs in tendon recovery have emerged in recent years. This article describes tendon injury and summarizes recent advances in tendon recovery, along with stem cell therapy, gene therapy, Platelet-rich plasma remedy, growth factors, drug treatment, and tissue engineering. Despite the recent fast-growing research in tendon recovery treatment, still, none of them translated to the clinical setting. This review provides a detailed overview of tendon injuries and potential preclinical approaches for treating tendon injuries.

Keywords: Tendon repair; preclinical status; recent advances; therapeutic approaches.

Publication types

  • Review
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Genetic Therapy* / methods
  • Humans
  • Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins / metabolism
  • Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins / therapeutic use
  • Platelet-Rich Plasma
  • Stem Cell Transplantation / methods
  • Tendon Injuries* / physiopathology
  • Tendon Injuries* / therapy
  • Tendons
  • Tissue Engineering* / methods
  • Wound Healing* / physiology

Substances

  • Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins

Grants and funding

This research work was funded by the Public Technology Applied Research Projects of Zhejiang Province (LGF22H060023 to WL), the Medical and Health Research Project of Zhejiang Province (2022KY433 to WL, 2021KY1164 to LF), the Traditional Chinese Medicine Science and Technology Projects of Zhejiang Province (2022ZB382 to WL, 2022ZB380 to JZ), the Research Fund Projects of The Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang Chinese Medicine University (2021FSYYZY45 to WL), and the Science and Technology Project of Zhoushan (2022C31034 to CZ, 2021C31099 to BZ).