Tissue Engineering of the Trachea: What is the Hold-up?

Tissue-engineering of the trachea is called for based on the clinical consequences of airway pathology. Recent years have witnessed various reports from the tissueengineering field including a few cases of clinical patients receiving an engineered airway. Multiple fields have accelerated in parallel with the concept of tissue decellularization, isolation of stem cells and possible insights in the biology of different stem cells. Yet, a clinical trial using a tissue-engineered trachea is yet to be initiated. What is the hold-up? Are the hurdles predominantly in the matrix field or cellular regeneration field or both? This systematic review is an attempt to evoke question on what the hold-up might be in the journey of successful regeneration of a functional airway.