Tissue engineered blood vessels: From the bench to the bedside and back again (development of a vascular conduit for use in congenital heart surgery)

Recent advancements in congenital heart surgery have enabled children born with congenital cardiac anomalies to have longer and better quality lives. Most congenital heart operations require the use of either autologous or bioprosthetic materials to reconstruct the heart and great vessels; hence the need to develop an ideal vascular graft. The development of tissue-engineered vascular conduits and grafts hold great promise in further advancing the fields of pediatric cardiothoracic and vascular surgery. To date, implantation of such grafts in human patients has also been successful and has presented us with an exciting, rapidly advancing field.