Reconstruction due to congenital defects or after tumor resection, trauma, osteonecrosis, and infection is one of the main challenges to maxillofacial surgeons. Those defects can negatively affect the patients' quality of life if not adequately managed due to the impairment of function as speech, mastication, or deglutition in addition to psychological problems caused by disfigurement due to facial deformity.
Clinically, reconstructive surgery has been the gold standard to repair and restore the vast majority of tissues in the maxillofacial region. However, traditional reconstructive surgery has disadvantages supplementary operation, donor site morbidity, a limited quantity of tissue available for reconstruction, and unpredictable resorption Maxillofacial surgeons are recently interested in a paradigm shift from traditional reconstructive surgery to tissue engineering to overcome the disadvantages of reconstructive surgery and to meet the future needs of the patients.
Restoration of such defects can be difficult due to the multicomponent rather than simple bony or soft tissue deficiencies. The current gold standard to reconstruct bony defects involves non-vascularized autologous bone grafts harvested from the iliac crest or intra-oral sites along with other surgical options including allografts, xenografts, composite grafts, or a combination of multiple grafting modalities. Small soft tissue defects can be reconstructed with local or regional flaps while vascularized free flaps are utilized in large soft tissue or composite defects. However, there are non-surgical epithesis options for major maxillofacial defects for instance prosthetic appliances or obturators.
Tissue engineering (TE) has been defined as an interdisciplinary field that applies the principles of engineering and life sciences toward the development of biological substitutes that restore, maintain, or improve tissue function. Biological tissues consist of cells, extracellular matrix (ECM), and signaling mechanisms. Tissue Engineering Triad includes a relevant cell population that creates the tissue, a scaffold for a 3D culture that holds the cells together to create the tissue’s physical form, and biological signaling molecules (such as growth factors) that direct the cells to express and recreate the desired tissue phenotype.
Tissue engineering in oral and maxillofacial surgery had gone into clinical application, surpassing the in vitro phase. Research work of the current advances can be classified into clinically applied and research-based. Every component has its emerging methods and technologies that could be applied in oral and maxillofacial surgery.
This Research Topic welcomes manuscripts covering the following themes:
• Applications of growth factors for maxillofacial defects
• Use of bone morphogenic protein (BMP) in tissue regeneration
• Drug delivery using nanoparticles and liposomes application in oral and maxillofacial surgery
• Gene therapy in the repair of radiation-damaged salivary glands in oral and maxillofacial surgery
• Induced pluripotent stem cells/ IPSCs in the regeneration of maxillofacial bone defects.
• Exosomes in oral and maxillofacial surgery
• 3D Bioprinting in tissue engineering
Keywords:
Tissue Engineering, Stem cell, Growth Factors, Tissue regeneration, Reconstructive Surgery, Maxillofacial region
Important Note:
All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
Reconstruction due to congenital defects or after tumor resection, trauma, osteonecrosis, and infection is one of the main challenges to maxillofacial surgeons. Those defects can negatively affect the patients' quality of life if not adequately managed due to the impairment of function as speech, mastication, or deglutition in addition to psychological problems caused by disfigurement due to facial deformity.
Clinically, reconstructive surgery has been the gold standard to repair and restore the vast majority of tissues in the maxillofacial region. However, traditional reconstructive surgery has disadvantages supplementary operation, donor site morbidity, a limited quantity of tissue available for reconstruction, and unpredictable resorption Maxillofacial surgeons are recently interested in a paradigm shift from traditional reconstructive surgery to tissue engineering to overcome the disadvantages of reconstructive surgery and to meet the future needs of the patients.
Restoration of such defects can be difficult due to the multicomponent rather than simple bony or soft tissue deficiencies. The current gold standard to reconstruct bony defects involves non-vascularized autologous bone grafts harvested from the iliac crest or intra-oral sites along with other surgical options including allografts, xenografts, composite grafts, or a combination of multiple grafting modalities. Small soft tissue defects can be reconstructed with local or regional flaps while vascularized free flaps are utilized in large soft tissue or composite defects. However, there are non-surgical epithesis options for major maxillofacial defects for instance prosthetic appliances or obturators.
Tissue engineering (TE) has been defined as an interdisciplinary field that applies the principles of engineering and life sciences toward the development of biological substitutes that restore, maintain, or improve tissue function. Biological tissues consist of cells, extracellular matrix (ECM), and signaling mechanisms. Tissue Engineering Triad includes a relevant cell population that creates the tissue, a scaffold for a 3D culture that holds the cells together to create the tissue’s physical form, and biological signaling molecules (such as growth factors) that direct the cells to express and recreate the desired tissue phenotype.
Tissue engineering in oral and maxillofacial surgery had gone into clinical application, surpassing the in vitro phase. Research work of the current advances can be classified into clinically applied and research-based. Every component has its emerging methods and technologies that could be applied in oral and maxillofacial surgery.
This Research Topic welcomes manuscripts covering the following themes:
• Applications of growth factors for maxillofacial defects
• Use of bone morphogenic protein (BMP) in tissue regeneration
• Drug delivery using nanoparticles and liposomes application in oral and maxillofacial surgery
• Gene therapy in the repair of radiation-damaged salivary glands in oral and maxillofacial surgery
• Induced pluripotent stem cells/ IPSCs in the regeneration of maxillofacial bone defects.
• Exosomes in oral and maxillofacial surgery
• 3D Bioprinting in tissue engineering
Keywords:
Tissue Engineering, Stem cell, Growth Factors, Tissue regeneration, Reconstructive Surgery, Maxillofacial region
Important Note:
All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.