Prefabrication of tissue engineered bone grafts: an experimental study

The purpose of this study was to determine whether angiogenesis could successfully be induced into bone tissue that was engineered by cultured adipose-derived stem cells with porous beta-tricalcium phosphate and whether its biologic properties could be maintained by flap prefabrication technique.Adipose-derived stem cells with porous beta-tricalcium phosphate were implanted into the superficial inferior epigastric artery flap of the Fisher rats. After prefabrication for 8 weeks, the prefabricated flaps were elevated and the pedicles were clamped for 4 hours. The samples were harvested after 2 weeks for analyses.Angiogenesis was significantly increased in the prefabricated groups (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference between the prefabricated and nonprefabricated groups in terms of the osteogenic capacity (P > 0.5).The promising results obtained with prefabrication in tissue engineered bone grafts encourage the clinical application of this technology. Thus, prefabrication may be a useful technique in any engineered bone tissue transfer.