STUDIO IN VIVO DI SCAFFOLD PER LA RIGENERAZIONE OSSEA E CARTILAGINEA.

The treatment of large osseous defects remains a challenging clinical problem in orthopedic surgery and, due to the lack of comparative studies, it is not always possible to define the best treatment choice for the different osseous and cartilage pathologies. As the field of tissue engineering develops, researchers face a large number of degrees of freedom regarding the choice of material, architecture, seeding, and culturing. Results from in vitro studies can be difficult to extrapolate to the in vivo situation. For this reason the use of animal models is often an essential step in the testing of orthopedic implants prior to clinical use in humans. We have investigated the differences in bone density between various species as factors for consideration when choosing an animal model. We also investigated in vivo a possible correlation between osteointegration and the increase in electrical impedance module. Due to the similarity of skeletal parameters and bone-healing rates the swine seem to be a good model in bone and joint surgery. We have examined in two tests, scaffolds for osteochondral tissue repair both in minipigs and in commercial pigs, to verify the differences between the two models and which one is the best.