“…The size and shape of the tissue to be regenerated, the nature and type of the cartilage defect and the conditions of the host should also be considered in the selection of materials (Chang et al , 2001; Hunziker, 2002; Temenoff et al , 2000; Vacanti et al , 1998). Different types of natural and synthetic materials have been used to fabricate supports for cartilage tissue engineering (Awad et al , 2004; Brandl et al , 2007; Bryant et al , 2004; Dunkelman et al , 1995; Gugala et al , 2000; Lee et al , 2000; Malafaya et al , 2005; Perka et al , 2000), Examples of the first type are fibrin (Perka et al , 2000; Schuller et al , 2008), collagen (Lee et al , 2000), alginate (Awad et al , 2004; Chang et al , 2001) and chitosan (Hoemann et al , 2005; Malafaya et al , 2005), and of the latter polyglycolic acid (Wang et al , 2003), polylactic acid (Gugala et al , 2000) and polyethylene glycol (Bryant et al , 2004). Natural and synthetic materials present both advantages and disadvantages.…”