Synthetic and Marine-Derived Porous Bone Graft Substitutes

Abstract

Bone is a dynamic tissue with the capacity of repair and regeneration in specific conditions. Nevertheless, due to the increased incidence of bone disorders, the need of bone grafts has been growing over the past decades and the development of a bone graft with optimal properties remains a clinical challenge. This review addresses the bone properties (morphology, composition and their repair and regeneration capacity) and then is focused on the potential strategies for bone repair and regeneration. It describes the requirements for designing a suitable scaffold material, types of materials (polymers, ceramics and composites) and techniques to obtain the porous structures (additive manufacturing techniques/robocasting or derived from marine skeletons) for bone tissue engineering applications. The main objective of this review is to gather the knowledge on the materials and methods for the production of scaffolds for bone tissue engineering and highlight that natural materials, namely the marine skeletons represent a promising alternative.