Advances in 3D printing techniques for cartilage regeneration of temporomandibular joint disc and mandibular condyle

Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) osteoarthritis causes fibrocartilage damage to the TMJ disc and mandibular condyle, resulting in local pain and functional impairment that further reduces patients’ quality of life. Tissue engineering offers a potential treatment for fibrocartilage regeneration of the TMJ disc and mandibular condyle. However, the heterogeneous structure of TMJ fibrocartilage tissue poses significant challenges for the fabrication of biomimetic scaffolds. Over the past two decades, some researchers have attempted to adopt three-dimensional (3D) printing techniques to fabricate biomimetic scaffolds for TMJ fibrocartilage regeneration, but publications on such attempts are limited and rarely report satisfactory results, indicating an urgent need for further development. This review outlines several popular 3D printing techniques and the significant elements of tissue-engineered scaffolds: seed cells, scaffold materials, and bioactive factors. Current research progress on 3D-printed scaffolds for fibrocartilage regeneration of the TMJ disc and mandibular condyle is reviewed. The current challenges in TMJ tissue engineering are mentioned along with some emerging tissue-engineering strategies, such as machine learning, stimuli-responsive delivery systems, and extracellular vesicles, which are considered as potential approaches to improve the performance of 3D-printed scaffolds for TMJ fibrocartilage regeneration. This review is expected to inspire the further development of 3D printing techniques for TMJ fibrocartilage regeneration.