Dynamic coil-shaped polylactic acid-reinforced extracellular matrix-derived scaffold with oriented pores for articular cartilage tissue engineering

Articular cartilage (AC) is a soft tissue lining the ends of the bones in our joints. Even minor lesions in AC can cause underlying bone damage creating an osteochondral (OC) defect. OC defects cause pain, impaired mobility and can develop to Osteoarthritis (OA).

OA is the most common form of arthritis, affecting nearly 10% of the population worldwide, and a serious disease representing a significant economic burden to patients and society. In Europe, the cost of OA per patient is estimated to exceed 10,000 per year. At present, the treatment options for OA are limited to surgical replacement of the diseased joint with a prosthesis.

While this procedure is well established, it is not without its limitations, and failures are not uncommon.

In addition, joint replacement prostheses have a finite lifespan, making them unsuitable for the growing population of younger and more active patients requiring treatment for OA.

While significant progress has been made in this field, realising an efficacious therapeutic option for the treatment of unresolved OA remains elusive and is considered to be one of the greatest challenges in the field of orthopaedic regenerative medicine.

One of the critical problems when repairing OC defects is the poor repair of the AC due to its repair with a low-quality scarring tissue, lacking the native aligned collagen microarchitecture.

Therefore, there is a societal need to develop new strategies for AC regeneration.The RECoil3D project aims to develop a new generation of dynamic load-bearing implants based on the Reinforcement of an extracellular matrix (ECM)-derived scaffold containing an aligned pore architecture with a dynamic Coil-shaped 3D printed polylactic acid (PLA) constructs for AC tissue repair.