The role of tissue engineering in cellular therapies for myocardial infarction: a review.

Current medical treatments of myocardial infarction (MI) face a serious shortcoming in that they cannot reverse the detrimental effects of ischemia induced necrosis. In searching for novel solutions to this medical problem, great focus has been placed on cardiac tissue engineering. Recently much progress has been made using cellular approaches, with multiple studies undergoing clinical trials. Non-cellular approaches for the construction of engineered cardiac tissue have also achieved some major breakthroughs, although drawbacks remain. In this review article, an update on the progress of a non-cellular approach is discussed with major focus on the two main scaffold types: implantable cardiac patches and injectable cardiac hydrogels. The design properties, cell sources, and material properties are briefly described.