Repair of Osteochondral Defects with Autologous Chondrocytes Seeded onto Bioceramic Scaffold in Sheep

At present, the most popular biomaterials used in cartilage tissue engineering are synthetic polymers. However, problems—such as acidic by-product accumulation and side effects in local or systemic inflammatory reactions during in vivo degradation—are drawing much attention. The polymers are also highly hydrophobic and degrade within 4 weeks, allowing insufficient time to support neocartilage formation. All these have made polymers less promising in clinical application. In this study, we tested a new bioceramic scaffold made of artificial synthesized powder of β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) in a sheep model. Osteochondral defects were filled with a bioceramic–chondrocyte construct and neocartilage tissue completely resurfaced the cartilage defects after 24 weeks. Typical hyaline cartilage structure was generated in the engineered cartilage. Biodegradation of bioceramic was notable, leading to bioceramic fragmentation and particle formation. Numerous ceramic particles (size, 0.5–1.9 µm) and numerous macro...