State of the Art: Tissue Engineering in Congenital Heart Surgery

Congenital heart disease is the leading cause of death secondary to congenital abnormalities in the United States and the incidence has increased significantly over the last 50 years. For those defects requiring surgical repair, bioprosthetic xenografts, allografts, and synthetic materials have traditionally been used. However, none of these modalities offer the potential for growth and accommodation within the pediatric population. Tissue engineering has been an area of great interest in a variety of cardiac applications as an innovative solution to create a product that can grow and regenerate within the body over time. Over the last 30 years, the original tissue engineering paradigm of a scaffold seeded with cells and cultured in a bioreactor has been expanded upon to include innovative methods of decellularization and production of "off-the-shelf" tissue-engineered products capable of in situ host cell repopulation. Despite progress in conceptual design and promising clinical results, widespread use of tissue-engineered products remains limited due to both regulatory and ongoing scientific challenges. Here, we describe the current state of the art with regards to in vitro, in vivo, and in situ tissue engineering as applicable within the field of congenital heart surgery and provide a brief overview of challenges and future directions.