Regenerative Medicine versus Conventional Auto/Allografts in Bone Reconstruction as an Option for Enhanced Quality of Life

Bone defects of various causes - infectious, trauma, congenital - are important medical and socio-economical problems because of impossibility of spontaneous healing (very frequent), difficult treatment and long healing period. There are multiple, varied and relatively complicated ways of solving these problems. Auto grafts, allografts and bone substitutes play an important role in bone reconstructive surgery. Over time, numerous investigations carried out have shown failures arising from the use of auto grafts and homografts. The disadvantages of these methods prompted a search for other methods of bone reconstruction in order to enhance the quality of life. In this context tissue engineering bone grafts has offered an alternative. The aim of our research was to evaluate the feasibility of creating a tissue engineered bone using mesenchymal cells seeded on a scaffold obtained from the red deer deciduous horn. We tried to demonstrate the advantages of grafts obtained through tissue engineering. Our research demonstrated that failures arising from the use of auto grafts and homografts (graft resorption, graft fracture, the bed donor morbidity, the risk of disease transmission, the rejection of grafts) can be avoided by the use of tissue engineered grafts.