A critical review on the 3D bioprinting in large bone defects regeneration

Abstract

Bone injuries are increasing due to the ageing of the population, and the previous methods of treating bone injuries such as grafts face many limitations, especially in the treatment of large bone injuries. Recently, bone tissue engineering has been introduced as a substitute method for bone regeneration. Scaffolding is one of the most important stages of bone tissue engineering. One of the newest methods of creating scaffolds is using a 3D bioprinter. This method provides several advantages over the traditional methods of fabricating scaffolds, for example, personalization, scaffold designing before production and structure controlling, reproducibility, the possibility of simultaneous cell printing, etc. Here, bone injuries and bone diseases, especially large ones, have been discussed at first. In the following, the 3D printing method is introduced and different bio-ink compositions, and various effective fctors in the design of 3d printed scaffolds were summerized. Afterward, the use of 3D printining and 3D bioprinting has been discussed in previous studies and its current challenges and future perspectives for the treatment of lrage bone defects were mentioned. It is hoped that this review will be a guide for using 3D bioprinting to treat bone injuries in near future applications.