Search

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS:: Current surgical techniques for the correction of microtia are challenging. Research in the field of tissue engineering is providing insight into chondrocyte behavior for a possible future treatment of microtia. The authors wished to evaluate the biological potential of chondrocytes isolated from microtia cartilage as compared with normal auricular cartilage as a source of tissue-engineered cartilage.STUDY DESIGN:: A comparative research design to study the potential of microtia cartilage chondrocytes with normal auricular chondrocytes as a source of tissue-engineered cartilage.METHODS:: Cartilage specimens from 12 pediatric patients (six normal auricular specimens and six auricular specimens with microtia) were obtained. The chondrocytes were isolated and cultured in vitro; chondrocyte number was increased by passaging. Each type of cell was implanted in nude mice to generate tissue-engineered cartilage. Eight weeks after implantation the specimens were dissected and removed. Results were compared between the normal auricular and microtia specimens in regard to cell number expansion in vitro and generation of tissue-engineered cartilage in vivo.RESULTS:: An initial mean cell number of 150,000 cells in each group (normal and microtia) increased to an average cell number of 120 million cells/mL in the normal and 130 million cells in the microtia subgroups, respectively, at the end of the second passage. Histologically, both types of chondrocytes generated normal elastic cartilage.CONCLUSION:: The study demonstrated the potential of cells isolated from microtia cartilage to generate tissue-engineered cartilage. Microtia cartilage represents an important additional donor source for the possible generation of a human tissue-engineered auricle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]