[Regenerative medicine in the fields of otolaryngology; head and neck regions].

Because of the limitations of the present medicine, regenerative medicine has greatly been hoped. Regenerative medicine is an exciting emerging branch of medicine in which cell and tissue based therapies are applied to the treatments of disease. This has been supported by the development of tissue engineering that was a complex of medicine and engineering. Tissue engineering applies the principles and methods of engineering, material science, and cell and molecular biology toward the development of viable substitutes which restore, maintain, or improve the function of human tissues. According to the doctrine of tissue engineering, tissues and organs can be regenerated by manipulating three elements: cells, scaffolds and regulation factors. Understanding and manipulating the complex relationship among these elements, however, represents the great challenge for researches and doctors who engage in regenerative medicine. On the other hand, clinical applications of it have not made progress yet except limited tissues and organs. Especially, few clinical studies have reported in the fields of otolaryngology, head and neck regions. In our research group, clinical applications in these fields based on the new concept of in situ tissue engineering have been started from 2002 after approval of the ethical committee. Tissues and/or organs for clinical applications at present are trachea, cricoid cartilage, mastoid air cells, and, peripheral nerves including facial nerve, recurrent laryngeal nerve, chorda tympani nerve and so on. This article describes the researches and clinical studies at present and in the near future of regenerative medicine in the fields of otolaryngology, head and neck regions.