Periodontal tissue engineering: current strategies and the role of platelet rich hemoderivatives

The periodontium is the assembly of tissues that anchor the teeth to the bone and acts like a dumper for the forces originated during the mastication. The integrity and function of periodontal tissue can be compromised by periodontitis. This highly prevalent inflammatory disease is clinically treatable, nevertheless the healing outcomes are not consistent with a functional periodontal tissue. Given the complexity of the tissues involved and the healing process of the periodontal wound, the development of therapies leading to consistent and predictable regeneration of functional periodontal tissues, turns out to be a challenge. Tissue engineering may offer the adequate prospects to address such challenge, which are summarized in this manuscript. Periodontal tissue engineering procures to regenerate the periodontal wound by stimulating the self-healing ability of periodontium. Thus, it should include the right combination of adequate cell types, biochemical stimuli and the provision of a stable matrix to drive the regrowth of both soft and hard periodontal tissue while avoiding the collapse of soft gingival tissue into periodontal wound. The use of hierarchically designed compartmentalized systems has been proposed as a viable strategy for the regeneration of the complex structure of periodontium. Platelet rich hemoderivatives (PRHds) have been explored for periodontal tissue engineering as sources of cytokines and structural proteins involved in the modulation of the wound healing. Here will be described the benefits, limitations and solutions for the application of the PRHds in peridontal tissue engineering.