Tissue Engineering Application of Decellularized Bone for Cranial Defect Repair

Large cranial defects are often repaired using graft materials that use new bone to protect the brain, one of the most crucial organs in our body. Currently available graft materials for cranial bone reconstruction include autografts, allografts, xenografts, and synthetic allografts. These options have several drawbacks including donor site morbidity, availability, immunogenic reaction, toxicity, etc. Moreover, the current cranial bone graft materials have additional limitations when further cranial surgery is needed. In an attempt to overcome these limitations, various alternative graft options have been engineered using synthetic or biomimetic materials in the form of porous scaffolds to treat large cranial defects.

The use of natural bone derivatives is relatively uncommon compared to scaffolds made of synthetic or biomimetic biomaterials. Recently, decellularized bone has been applied as a potential graft option for the repair of cranial defects with promising results. Advances in tissue engineering and scaffolding technology may enable decellularized bone to be customized as a defect specific scaffold as an approach to effectively regenerate new bone within the defect. In this review, we focus on recent research using tissue-engineering strategies with decellularized bone to repair cranial bone defects.

Keywords: Decellularized bone; Immunogenic reaction Scaffold, Tissue-engineering