Rapid prototyping technology for bone regeneration

Bone is a dynamic, highly vascularized tissue with a unique capacity to heal and remodel without scarring. Tissue engineering (TE) offers a promising new approach for bone repair, and the development of scaffolds used to restore damaged bone tissue is increasingly used in bone TE. Various methods for manufacturing scaffolds to replace bone tissue have been developed. However, scaffolds developed using conventional fabrication techniques have severe disadvantages in precision and reproducibility. To overcome these, tissue engineers have devised strategies, such as solid free-form (SFF) fabrication techniques, to fabricate porous, fully interconnected scaffolds for bone TE applications. In addition, cell-printing technology has been used to manufacture cell-laden bone regeneration constructs. This chapter reviews RP-based three-dimensional bone-graft analogues fabricated using state-of-the-art computer-assisted tissue-fabrication strategies for bone TE. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.11Nscopu