Progress of chitin nerve conduit in peripheral nerve repair / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To summarize the progress on the biomaterials of chitin nerve conduit to repair peripheral nerve injury in recent years.DATA SOURCES A computer-based online search of literatures related to the application of the biomaterials of nerve conduit on peripheral nerve injury was performed in Medline and Springerlink by using the key words of "nerve conduit, peripheral nerve injury" between January 2000 and August 2009 and the language was limited to English. Meanwhile, we searched China Periodicals Full-text Database and Weipu database for the related Chinese articles published between January 2000 and August 2009 with the same key words in Chinese.STUDY SELECTION Inclusive criteria Researches about the non-biodegradable materials, biodegradable materials and biological derivative materials that were related to the peripheral nerve injury were included. Exclusive criteria The irrelevant and repeated articles were excluded.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Nerve tissue engineering, chitin nerve conduit, and preparation of nerve conduit.RESULTS: With the progress of medical materials, the neural tube of natural or synthetic materials used to bridge defect of the neural in nerve tissue engineering scaffold material with a guide and to promote nerve regeneration. In the biodegradable material, chitin neural tube could be degraded within a reasonable period of time, biological control compatibility, performance degradation, mechanical properties and porosity. And in the structure of the conduit, combined other biodegradable materials,surface modification, adding seed cells and nerve growth factor, and other aspects of the experimental study were investigated.Changing the spatial structure of renewable and micro-environment aimed to speed up the rate of nerve growth, and promote the resumption of the good nerve function. And material's surface had to be modified and improved for conduit to adapt nerve during the nerve regeneration.CONCLUSION: With the continued development of biotechnique and cross-correlation technique, the biomaterials of chitin nerve conduit will have a prosperous future on peripheral nerve tissue engineering.