Osseous tissue engineering in oncologic surgery.

Tissue engineering is an interdisciplinary field that will yield new sources of tissue for clinical and research purposes in oncology. Bone is under intense investigation by this field. Relevant areas of progress are in advanced computing, biomaterials, cell technology, growth factor fabrication and delivery, and gene manipulation. Clinical techniques will emerge from continued investigation in each of these areas. Techniques that are developed must be scaled up to industry with products cleared by regulatory agencies and acceptable to clinicians and patients. The goals of tissue engineering in oncology are improved tissue models for basic cancer research and a change in clinical practice. Semin. Surg. Oncol. 19:294-301, 2000. Copyright 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.