Prospects for tissue engineered bile duct

Intraoperative bile duct injures requiring its repair observed in 0.05-2.7% of patients, who underwent cholecystectomy due to cholelithiasis. Lots of patients require reconstructive bile duct surgery given that cholecystectomy is the second most common surgery in the abdominal region, and more than 1 mln operations are made all over the world per year. Previously stitching of the crossed bile duct edges was used, but in most cases this entailed the bile duct stricture and disturbance of the bile outflow. At present, the standard surgery includes suturing of the duct with small intestine, but such a reconstruction, in turn, can lead to liver abscess, biliary cirrhosis and increased risk of cholangiocarcinoma. In this review, we consider the possibility of creating fragments of tissue-engineered bile duct that involves the use multilayer tissue-engineered structures consisting of a composite matrix, cells and signaling molecules that stimulate local proliferation and neovascularization