Biomaterials for intervertebral disc regeneration: past performance and possible future strategies

Intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration is associated with most cases of cervical and lumbar spine pathologies, amongst which chronic low back pain has become the number one cause of loss of quality-adjusted life years. In search of alternatives to the current less than optimal and usually highly invasive treatments, regenerative strategies are being devised, none of which has reached clinical practice as yet. Strategies include the use of stem cells, gene therapy, growth factors and biomaterial carriers. Biomaterial carriers are an important component in musculoskeletal regenerative medicine techniques. Several biomaterials, both from natural and synthetic origin, have been used for regeneration of the IVD in vitro and in vivo. Aspects such as ease of use, mechanical properties, regenerative capacity, and their applicability as carriers for regenerative and anti-degenerative factors determine their suitability for IVD regeneration. The current review provides an overview of the biomaterials used with respect to these properties, including their drawbacks. In addition, as biomaterial application until now appears to have been based on a mix of mere availability and intuition, a more rational design is proposed for future use of biomaterials for IVD regeneration. Ideally, high-throughput screening is used to identify optimally effective materials, or alternatively medium content comparative studies should be carried out to determine an appropriate reference material for future studies on novel materials.