Tissue-engineered nerve grafts with a capillary-like network .

摘要

Introduction A nerve graft is occasionally necessary for the treatment of traumatic peripheral nerve lesions. The gold standard remains the autograft, despite the study of multiple nerve guides as alternatives. This thesis utilizes a tissue-engineering approach to design an autologous nerve guide, with or without a capillary-like network.;Results Tubular structures with and without a capillary-like network, composed entirely of human cells, can be produced with a new tissue-engineering technique. Despite evidence of some axonal regeneration, preliminary in vivo studies in the rat were negative.;Conclusion This thesis presents an innovative tissue-engineering technique for the production of autologous nerve guides from human cells, with a capillary-like network.;Material and Methods Human fibroblasts and endothelial cells were used to produce a tubular structure with a capillary-like network. The potential for these different nerve guides produced with a tissue-engineering approach to support nerve regeneration was studied with the rat sciatic nerve model.