Current status, trend and progress of stem cells in tracheal tissue engineering research: an overview and perspectives

Currently, the reconstruction of the tracheal structure and function following a lengthy segmental tracheal defect remains a global issue that urgently needs to be solved. Tracheal tissue engineering (TTE) brings hope for tracheal reconstruction, and stem cells have shown great potential in constructing ideal tissue-engineered tracheae with their strong self-renewal ability, multidirectional differentiation potential, paracrine performance, and immunomodulatory properties. By conducting bibliometric and visual analysis, this review investigates the main countries, institutions, and authors in the field of TTE stem cell research, as well as analyzes the international research status, trends, and hotspots in this field, and reveals the possible research directions in the future. Furthermore, in this review, we summarize the types of stem cells that have been applied in TTE studies and the construction strategies for stem cell-based tissue-engineered trachea. And the current challenges of constructing a tissue-engineered trachea based on stem cells are also delved into in this review.