3D printing soft tissue scaffolds using Poly(caprolactone)

The creation of tissue scaffolds complex enough to facilitate acceptable tissue repair is difficult with analogue production methods, but the trend of computer aided design and 3D printing shows promise for rapidly creating customisable, complex scaffolds. This review discusses recent advances in 3D printing biodegradable soft tissue scaffolds, focusing on poly(caprolactone) (PCL) as a major component of scaffolds for dermal, adipose, and muscle repair. PCL is a biodegradable polyester used in bone and other hard tissue scaffolds. However, creating softer blends and copolymers with PCL has enabled wider application in soft tissue-engineered scaffolds. The review begins with the challenges and requirements of soft tissue-engineered scaffolds, followed by new techniques and materials from recent work. The primary methods of printing soft scaffolds are highlighted, such as extrusion-based, liquid polymerisation based and bioprinting, with multi-material printing being a more recent trend featuring combinations of the previous methods.