The relevance of tissue engineering in orthopaedic sports medicine

Tissue engineering (TE) approaches are converging with medical sciences and revolutionizing the paradigm of sports medicine. TE relies on three essential features: Scaffolds, cells and biological factors (ex: growth factors and physical stimuli).[1] Combining these 3 features TE has been shown very promising results. This novel approach in orthopedic sports medicine aims to mimic as much as possible the native tissues in order to pursue: i) a better regenerative process to restore, defend or improve the structure, ii) improve the function of a certain tissue or organ that has suffered an injury or a defect. Aware of that, the global scientific community together with the medical community have united efforts to reach better TE clinical strategies that overcome the issues of the current treatments (Fig. 1). Each Living tissue has its own complexity. They are non-homogenous entities, composed of biologically and functionally different layers that coexist in hierarchy and harmony.[2] Taking this into account, it is important to optimize different strategies when envisioning the regeneration of different tissues. Using the three features of TE as background, is has been attempted to develop different strategies to use growth factors associated to scaffolds with/or cells. Herein, we discuss the most significant tissue engineering studies regarding the use of growth factors, stem cells and scaffolds in the treatment of orthopedic sports lesions. Moreover, the recent advances that can be “closer” to jump from the laboratory bench to clinical application are also considered.