Advances in artificial ligament biomaterials for anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction: material innovation, surface modification, and novel adjuvant methods
摘要
Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury is one of the most common and severe sports-related knee injuries. Anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) is currently the primary clinical treatment. Compared with other grafts, artificial ligaments offer significant advantages in enabling early return to sports after surgery and, therefore, have been widely studied and applied in clinical practice. This review summarizes recent literature on the application of artificial ligaments in ACLR, outlining the classification of ligament materials, historical development, and advancements in biomaterial research. Although early artificial ligaments showed limited clinical efficacy, the continuous progress in materials science and tissue engineering has facilitated the use of various natural, synthetic, and composite materials in ACL artificial ligament construction, significantly improving their biocompatibility and mechanical properties. In addition, researchers have employed strategies such as surface modification, bioactive factor loading, and cell delivery to endow artificial ligaments with enhanced functionality, yielding promising results in animal studies. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the progress in artificial ligaments biomaterials, systematically summarizes the current changes and innovations in artificial ligament scaffold materials, surface modification technologies, and new auxiliary strategies and highlights auxiliary strategies used with artificial ligaments in ACLR to enhance tendon bone healing, with particular emphasis on the role of tissue engineering and biomaterials. The clinical translation prospects of these emerging strategies are also discussed.