Polymer Fiber Scaffolds for Bone and Cartilage Tissue Engineering

TLDR

Regenerating weight‑bearing bone and critical‑sized cartilage defects remains a major clinical challenge, and biodegradable polymer fiber scaffolds—offering high surface area, suitable mechanical strength, and tunable properties—have emerged as promising candidates. This review aims to summarize the preparation, composition, and characteristics of polymer fibers for bone and cartilage tissue engineering. It highlights how polymer fiber scaffolds with tailored structures or unique properties are applied in bone, cartilage, and osteochondral tissue engineering. The comprehensive overview offers constructive suggestions for advancing polymer fiber scaffold development in these tissues.

Abstract

Abstract Successful regeneration of weight‐bearing bone defects and critical‐sized cartilage defects remains a major challenge in clinical orthopedics. In the past decades, biodegradable polymer materials with biomimetic chemical and physical properties have been rapidly developed as ideal candidates for bone and cartilage tissue engineering scaffolds. Due to their unique advantages over other materials of high specific‐surface areas, suitable mechanical strength, and tailorable characteristics, scaffolds made of polymer fibers have been increasingly used for the repair of bone and cartilage defects. This Review summarizes the preparation and compositions of polymer fibers, as well as their characteristics. More importantly, the applications of polymer fiber scaffolds with well‐designed structures or unique properties in bone, cartilage, and osteochondral tissue engineering have been comprehensively highlighted. On the whole, such a comprehensive summary affords constructive suggestions for the development of polymer fiber scaffolds in bone and cartilage tissue engineering.