Abstract:

It is today widely acknowledged that nerve repair is now more than a matter of perfect microsurgical reconstruction only and that, to further improve clinical outcome, the involvement of different scientific disciplines is required. This evolving reconstructive/regenerative approach is based on the interdisciplinary and integrated pillars of tissue engineering such as reconstructive microsurgery, transplantation and biomaterials. In this paper, some of the most promising innovations for the tissue engineering of nerves, emerging from basic science investigation, are critically overviewed with special focus on those approaches that appear today to be more suitable for clinical translation.

Key words: nerve reconstruction, tissue engineering, cell and tissue transplantation, gene therapy, biomaterials, peripheral nervous system, microsurgery, artificial hollow tubes, muscle-vein-combined tubes, non-nervous guides, neural regeneration