Principles of Soft Tissue Engineering for Craniomaxillofacial Reconstruction

Craniomaxillofacial soft tissue reconstruction is necessary to restore tissue defects caused by trauma, diseases, tumor removal, or congenital abnormality. The use of autologous native tissue will cause a second morbidity to the patient, especially when a large native tissue is required to repair the defect. The application of autologous tissue-engineered devices becomes a logical therapeutic consideration. The recent successful identification of oral and skin stem/progenitor cells and the improvement of scaffolds make it possible to manufacture various types of soft tissue-engineered devices and provide surgeons the materials to restore different areas of soft tissue defects. For craniomaxillofacial soft tissue reconstruction, we should consider esthetics and function in addition to merely anatomical tissue restoration. The ex vivo manufacture and post-manufacture manipulation of the tissue-engineered devices to create a custom-designed product before implantation into a recipient are important to achieve these goals. In this chapter, we report and discuss the concepts and protocols for craniomaxillofacial soft tissue reconstruction with special emphasis on tissue engineering functional human lips.