RESEARCH ARTICLE
Tissue Engineering for the Meniscus: A Review of the Literature
Bethan Tucker, Wasim Khan, Mamun Al-Rashid , Hesham Al-Khateeb*
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2012Volume: 6
Issue: Suppl 2
First Page: 348
Last Page: 351
Publisher ID: TOORTHJ-6-348
DOI: 10.2174/1874325001206010348
Article History:
Received Date: 27/12/2011Revision Received Date: 12/2/2012
Acceptance Date: 12/3/2012
Electronic publication date: 27/7/2012
Collection year: 2012

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
The menisci disperse the load at the knee joint. Removal of the menisci can lead to osteoarthritis due to the higher load placed on the underlying cartilage. If they become injured it is therefore important to replace or regenerate the meniscus to prevent the progression of osteoarthritis. Many materials have been trialled to find a scaffold that can withstand the stresses and strains across the joint without causing any adverse effects. This review looks at these materials further to clarify the current position of tissue engineering for the meniscus and to highlight the areas where further research is needed. A scaffold which can produce high quality in vivo results in everyone has not yet been found.