Neural Regeneration Research ›› 2019, Vol. 14 ›› Issue (12): 2073-2074.doi: 10.4103/1673-5374.262580

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Engineering nerve guidance conduits with three-dimenisonal bioprinting technology for long gap peripheral nerve regeneration

Jian Du 1, Xiaofeng Jia 2,3   

  1. 1Department of Neurosurgery, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA;
    2Department of Orthopedics, Anatomy Neurobiology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA;
    3Department of Biomedical Engineering, Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
  • Online:2019-12-15 Published:2019-12-15
  • Contact: Wei-Yi Ong, PhD, wei_yi_ong@nuhs.edu.sg; John Jia En Chua, PhD, phsjcje@nus.edu.sg.
  • Supported by:

    This work was partially supported by Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund (2018-MSCRFD-4271, to XJ), and R01HL118084 and R01NS110387 from United States National Institutes of Health (both to XJ).

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Abstract:

Nerve guidance conduits (NGCs) are tubular structures that are used to bridge the gap of a severed nerve, thereby acting as a guide and protective micro-environment for the regenerating axons and as a barrier against the in-growth of scar-forming tissue. In the last few decades, the concept of NGCs has evolved from a research tool to investigate nerve regeneration into a translational product that is now being used clinically as an alternative for autologous nerve graft repair, due to their availability and ease of fabrication. At the moment, various nerve conduits have been approved for clinical use and are being marketed, including Neurotube TM (K983007, 1999), Salubridge TM  (K002098, 2000), NeuraGen TM (K011168, 2001), Surgisis TM Nerve Cuff (K031069, 2003), Neurolac TM (K050573, 2005; K112267, 2011), Cova TM ORTHO-NERVE (K103081, 2012), Reaxon TM Plus (K143711, 2015) (Du et al., 2018a). However, clinical outcomes associated with the use of artificial nerve conduits are often inferior to that of autografts, particularly over long lesion gaps. Although their clinical use has been limited, mainly to the repair of relatively small defects (< 3 cm), such as small-caliber digital nerves, the potential for extending their clinical application to the repair of larger defects and larger mixed or motor nerves has made the development of an ideal nerve tube appealing for both scientists and the medical device industry.