Current Advances in Solid Free-Form Techniques for Osteochondral Tissue Engineering

Osteochondral (OC) lesions are characterized by defects in two different zones, the
cartilage region and subchondral bone region. These lesions are frequently associated
with mechanical instability, as well as osteoarthritic degenerative changes in the knee.
The lack of spontaneous healing and the drawbacks of the current treatments has
increased the attention from the scientific community to this issue. Different tissue
engineering approaches have been attempted using different polymers and different
scaffolds' processing. However, the current conventional techniques do not allow the
full control over scaffold fabrication, and in this type of approaches, the tuning ability is
the key to success in tissue regeneration. In this sense, the researchers have placed
their efforts in the development of solid free-form (SFF) techniques. These techniques
allow tuning different properties at the micro-macro scale, creating scaffolds with
appropriate features for OC tissue engineering. In this review, it is discussed the
current SFF techniques used in OC tissue engineering and presented their promising
results and current challenges.