Towards an Artificial Meniscus: Biomechanical Properties as a Driver for Orthopaedic Innovation

Meniscal tear is still an unsolved problem in regenerative medicine. The almost total inability in self-healing damaged tissue shown by the menisci is due to the extremely reduced amount of vessels for blood supply that does not allow the normal inflammatory response promoter of tissue healing. The use of cadaveric meniscal allografts remains the golden standard nowadays, but it subject to several inconveniences as penury of donor tissue, risk of infections and size matching. The challenge is therefore oriented towards the artificial meniscus prostheses. The use of composites based polymeric materials can partially replicate the complex internal structure of the meniscal cartilage. In order to obtain a mechanically efficient prostheses it is indeed fundamental to deeply study the mechanical characteristics of the natural meniscus tissue preserving the features and behaviour of the original structure. A novel method able to measure the effective mechanical response of a natural meniscus in its different regions without affecting the results by the sampling inconvenience was set up and described in this work