Intrauterine adhesions (IUAs) refer to the repair disorder after endometrial injury and may lead to uterine infertility, recurrent miscarriage, abnormal menstrual bleeding, and other obstetric complications. It is a pressing public health issue among women of childbearing age. Presently, there are limited clinical treatments for IUA, and there is no sufficient evidence that these treatment modalities can effectively promote regeneration after severe endometrial injury or improve pregnancy outcome. The inhibitory pathological micro-environment is the main factor hindering the repair of endometrial damaged tissues. To address this, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine have been achieving promising developments. Particularly, biomaterials have been used to load stem cells or therapeutic factors or construct an in situ delivery system as a treatment strategy for endometrial injury repair. This article comprehensively discusses the characteristics of various bio-scaffold materials and their application as stem cell or therapeutic factor delivery systems constructed for uterine tissue regeneration.
Keywords: Asherman's syndrome/endometrium regeneration; BMNCs, autologous bone marrow mononuclear cells; BMSCs, bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells; Biological scaffold material; D&C, Dilatation and curettage; ECM, extracellular matrix; En-PSC, endometrial perivascular cells; IUA, Intrauterine adhesions; KGF, Keratinocyte growth factor; MSC-Sec, Mesenchymal stem cell-secretome; SDF-1α, stromal cell-derived factor-1α; Scaffold-based therapeutics delivery systems; Stem cell; Therapeutic factor; UCMSCs, umbilical cord derived mesenchymal stem cells; VEGF, vascular endothelial growth factor; bFGF, basic fibroblast growth factors; dEMSCs, endometrial stromal cells; hESCs, human embryonic stem cells.
© 2021 Published by Elsevier Ltd.