Abstract
A rotator cuff tear is one of the most common traumatic and degenerative tendon injuries resulting in over 4.5 million physician visits in the US alone. Functional restoration of rotator cuff defects usually requires surgical repair, estimated at 300,000 cased in the US annually. However, postoperative retear of repaired tendons ranges from 20% in small to medium tears to over 90% in large and massive tears. Recently, augmentation with grafting materials to strengthen a reparable tear or to bridge an unrepairable defect has become a common and attractive strategy to reduce the retear rate, especially for large or massive tears. Current graft materials, however, have encountered great challenges in achieving these goals. To meet these challenges, we have developed an engineered tendon with layered tendon-fibrocartilage-bone composite (TFBC) from patellar-tibia unit revitalized by seeding bone marrow derived stem cells (BMDSCs) within the slices, and then reassembled to an engineered tendon. Both in vitro and in vivo results have shown that engineered TFBC enhance the biomechanical strength and biological healing using canine model.
