Fabrication, Properties, and Applications of Scaffolds for Bone Tissue Regeneration

ABSTRACT Bone defects resulting from aging, disease, cancer, and trauma have seen a significant rise globally. Unlike autografts and allografts, man‐made porous tissue engineering scaffolds possess unique and irreplaceable advantages for repairing bone defects, including high biocompatibility, adjustable degradation rate, controllable mechanical properties, excellent osteointegration, osteoconduction, and in some situations, osteoinduction. Consequently, over the past few decades, the development of tissue engineering scaffolds has flourished and has made substantial progress for bone tissue regeneration. Therefore, it is crucial to systematically review the design, composition, fabrication, properties, and clinical applications of scaffolds for bone tissue engineering (BTE). In this review, we briefly introduce the anatomical structure of natural bones and discuss the evolution of tissue engineering and BTE. Subsequently, we detail the biomaterials commonly used for BTE scaffolds, including polymers, bioceramics, metallic alloys, and biomedical composites. Next, we elaborate on both conventional and advanced fabrication techniques for BTE scaffolds, comparing and highlighting the benefits and limitations of the techniques. Additionally, we summarize the physical properties and biological performance of BTE scaffolds and provide the progress in clinical applications. Finally, we discuss and point out the challenges and future perspectives for BTE scaffolds.