何守玉               　邱勇

    Degenerative disc disease ( DDD ) is one of the leading causes of low back pain in the adult population, and the surgical treatment is known as the gold standard for such diseases. A large percentage of patients are relieved after undergoing disc resection and spinal fusion. Older patients who are easily to suffer from DDDs have limited tolerance of the surgical treatment. And meanwhile, there are some surgical risks and complications. In some researches, it is found that DDDs occur when the cells of intervertebral disc die or become dysfunctional. Therefore, there is a great clinical need for biotherapies to alleviate pain associated with DDDs. In the past decade, the number of treatment methods for DDDs has dramatically increased due to the advances in biologicals and biomaterials and the deepened understanding of the spinal physiology and pathology. In this article, advances in biotherapies used for treating DDDs in recent years are mainly reviewed, including cell therapy, bioactive factor therapy, gene therapy and the technique of intervertebral disc tissue engineering scaffold. As some of these methods are still in experimental phases, defects and limitations of each biotherapy are noted in this review. Finally, the research direction and challenge of biotherapies for the treatment of DDDs in the next few years are proposed.