Tissue engineered disc replacement

Abstract

Motion preservation in the spine has become a major area of research over the past few years. While prosthetic intervertebral disc replacement has been approved for clinical use, they are not without problems. Biologic motion preservation, on the other hand, may have the potential to overcome some of these, since the disc architecture and cell populations are preserved. This talk will discuss the meaning of tissue engineering in the context of the intervertebral disc, including the options of disc regeneration in which the endogenous cells and scaffold are made use of, and a tissue engineered replacement, in which the a disc is manufactured and grown outside the body (ex-vivo) and then implanted. Overall, we feel that this area of research is promising and may herald new treatments for intervertebral disc degeneration in the future. Concepts will be explained so that the general orthopaedic surgeon will understand how this branch of science will be relevant to their clinical practice.