Advances in cartilage tissue engineering: Strategies, challenges, and future directions

Articular cartilage is highly susceptible to physical and degenerative damage due to its avascular nature and limited regenerative capacity. The aim of this review article is to explore recent advances in cartilage tissue engineering to develop alternative therapeutic approaches for repairing damaged tissues.

A structured search was conducted across scientific databases-including PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science-to identify relevant studies published between 2000 and 2026 regarding cartilage tissue engineering. The search covered topics such as cell sources, biomaterial scaffolds, growth factors, bioreactor systems, and emerging cartilage regeneration strategies, utilizing a combination of keywords and terms related to cartilage tissue engineering, cartilage regeneration, biomaterials, scaffolds, hydrogels, stem cells, chondrogenesis, and 3D bioprinting. Retrieved studies were screened for relevance to the review's scope, and eligible studies were qualitatively analyzed and synthesized to summarize recent advancements, existing challenges, and future directions in the field of cartilage tissue engineering. As this study was designed as a narrative review, no formal meta-analysis or quantitative statistical synthesis was performed.

The findings indicate that the use of mesenchymal stem cells, nanostructured scaffolds with bioactive compositions, and the application of mechanical and chemical factors play a significant role in cell differentiation into chondrocytes and successful cartilage regeneration. However, challenges such as mechanical integrity, long-term durability, and clinical translation still remain.

Cartilage tissue engineering holds great potential for the treatment of cartilage injuries; nevertheless, further studies are needed to optimize cell sources, scaffold design, and environmental control conditions in the tissue engineering process to achieve effective clinical applications.