[Periodontal tissue engineering and regeneration].

The clinical management of periodontal disease is a global concern, and the regeneration of periodontal tissue defects due to periodontitis faces a huge challenge in the field of regenerative dentistry. Although conventional periodontal therapies focusing on in flammation control could stop or delay the progression of the disease, periodontal regeneration remains an elusive but laudable goal. Since late 1980s, concerted efforts have been made to accelerate and augment periodontal repair by using guided tissue regeneration (GTR), guided bone regeneration (GBR) and a wide range of other regenerative paradigms. Those advances have largely improved the clinical outcomes of periodontal therapies. In the past several years of 21st century, many progresses were made in the developments of stem cell therapy and tissue engineering, including remarkable biological discoveries in the laboratory as well as great curative successes in preclinical scenarios. The use of the principles, techniques and procedures of tissue engineering in periodontology showed great potential to regenerate new functional periodontal tissues such as alveolar bone, periodontal ligament, root cementum and finally and predictably the normal structure and functionality of the periodontium around a previously diseased tooth.