Can bioactive glasses be useful to accelerate the healing of epithelial tissues?

Over the last decade, there has been an impressive growth of new potential applications for bioactive glasses (BGs) in regenerative medicine. Apart from being used in contact with injured bone, BGs are now showing promise in accelerating the healing of soft tissues too, such as epithelium, thus creating new hopes for the repair of damaged skin, gastrointestinal tract and airspaces of the lungs. BGs can form a biological bond with soft tissues, accelerate epithelial cell proliferation, and reduce the inflammation in the injured sites. BGs can also be added to “soft” polymeric matrices for imparting biological extra-functionalities (e.g. enhanced angiogenesis) which play a key role in epithelial reconstruction strategies. The aim of this study is to provide a critical review of the potential of various types of BGs for the repair and regeneration of the epithelial tissues based on the existing data in the literature.