Research progress in mechanical strength enhancement methods of jaw tissue engineering scaffolds

Bone tissue engineering, as an emerging method for the treatment of jaw defects caused by oral and maxillofacial trauma, inflammation, tumors and other diseases, has been a research hotspot due to its advantages of wide sources of materials, low risk of immune rejection and personalized treatment. However, due to functional activities such as chewing and expression in the oral and maxillofacial regions, the mechanical strength of scaffolds is highly required. A single component of scaffolds can not fully meet the requirements of oral and maxillofacial bone defect repair. In this paper, the methods of strengthening the mechanical strength of jaw bone tissue engineering scaffolds are summarized by summarizing the research on strengthening the mechanical strength of scaffolds in recent years. A review of the literature showed that, composite modification, crosslinking, coating, bionic scaffolding and other new processing methods have been used to enhance the mechanical strength of scaffolds. Among these studies, research on compound modification occurred the earliest. Although this process is simple, other substances have been introduced to increase the number of degradation products, and the compounding ratio needs to be adjusted. The crosslinking method has the risk of cytotoxicity due to the use of crosslinking agents; the coating method does not change the original structure and only changes the surface modification; however, it can be better utilized if the problem of stress concentration between interfaces is solved. Biomimetic scaffolds and microregulatory scaffolds are emerging technologies in recent years that can improve the internal molecular arrangement of materials, thus enhancing mechanical strength. Therefore, on the basis of perfecting the traditional method, future research will focus on new nanoscale materials, bionic scaffolds and new methods for the precise control of scaffold microstructure.