Laser sintering for the fabrication of tissue engineering scaffolds

Laser sintering (LS) utilises a laser to sinter powder particles. A volumetric model is sliced and processed cross section by cross section to create a physical part. In theory, all powdered materials are suitable for sintering; however, only few have been tested successfully. For tissue engineering (TE) applications of this rapid prototyping technology it is an advantage that no toxic solvents or binders are necessary. This chapter reviews the direct and indirect use of LS to fabricate scaffolds for TE from single and multiphase materials.