@phdthesis{Koschitzki2020,
  author    = {Koschitzki, Kim Christine Cornelia},
  title     = {Evaluation of preclinical animal models in bone tissue engineering and their success in clinical translation},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-20759},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-207593},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2020},
  abstract  = {Autologous bone still represents today's gold standard for the treatment of critical size bone defects and fracture non-unions despite associated disadvantages regarding limitations in availability, donor site morbidity, costs and efficacy. Bone tissue engineered constructs would present a promising alternative to currently available treatments. However, research on preclinical animal studies still fails to provide clinical applicable results able to allow the replacement of currently applied methods. It seems that the idea of bone tissue engineering, which has now been integral part of academic studies for over 30 years, got somehow stuck at an intermediate level, in between intense preclinical research and striven stages of initial clinical trial phases. A clear discrepancy exists between the number of studies with preclinical animal models for bone tissue engineering and the number of clinically approved bone tissue engineered constructs available to patients. The aim of this thesis was hence to evaluate preclinical animal models for bone tissue engineering as well as the perception of scientists and clinicians towards these models. Moreover, the general role of bone tissue engineering and its clinical need assessed by scientists and surgeons was investigated. A survey was conducted questioning both scientific and clinical opinions on currently available study designs and researchers' satisfaction with preclinical animal models. Additionally, a literature research was conducted, resulting in 167 papers from the last 10 years that report current designs of preclinical orthotopic animal studies in bone tissue engineering. Thereby, the focus lied on the description of the models regarding animal species, strain, age, gender and defect design. The outcome of the literature search was evaluated and compared to the outcome obtained from the survey. The survey data revealed that both scientists and surgeons generally remain positive about the future role of bone tissue engineering and its step to clinical translation, at least in the distant future, where it then might replace the current gold standard, autologous bone. Moreover, most of the participants considered preclinical animal models as relevant and well developed but the results as not yet realizable in the clinics. Surgeons thereby demonstrated a slightly more optimistic perception of currently conducted research with animal models compared to scientists. However, a rather inconsistent description of present preclinical study designs could be discerned when evaluating the reported study designs in the survey and the papers of the literature search. Indeed, defining an appropriate animal species, strain, age, gender, observation time, observation method and surgical design often depends on different indications and research questions and represents a highly challenging task for the establishment of a preclinical animal model. The existing lack of valid guidelines for preclinical testing of bone tissue engineering leads hence to a lack of well standardized preclinical animal models. Moreover, still existing knowledge gaps regarding aspects that affect the process of fracture healing, such as vascularization or immunological aspects, were found to hinder clinical translation of bone tissue engineered constructs. Using literature review and survey, this thesis points out critical issues that need to be addressed to allow clinical translation of bone tissue engineered constructs. It can be concluded that currently existing study designs with preclinical animal models cannot live up to the claim of providing suitable results for clinical implementation. The here presented comprehensive summary of currently used preclinical animal models for bone tissue engineering reveals a missing consensus on the usage of models such as an apparent lack of reporting and standardization regarding the study designs described in both papers from the literature review and the survey. It thereby indicates a crucial need to improve preclinical animal models in order to allow clinical translation. Despite the fact that participants of the survey generally revealed a positive perception towards the use of bone tissue engineered constructs and affirmed the clinical need for such novel designs, the missing standardization constitutes a main weak point for the provision of reliable study outcome and the translational success of the models. The optimization of reproducibility and reliability, as well as the further understanding of ongoing mechanisms in bone healing in order to develop effective tissue engineered constructs, need to form the basis of all study designs. The study outcomes might then fulfill the requirements of maybe today's and hopefully tomorrow's aging population.},
  language  = {en}
}