Tissue engineering (TE) constitutes a multidisciplinary scientific discipline focused on the construction of artificial tissues to regenerate end-stage organs. The impact of TE has led to a clinical revolution since novel therapies are available to attend several conditions. In this sense, its onset has supposed the communication of innovative discoveries in the age of social and mass media. This study aims to evaluate the global online dimension of TE from 2012 to 2018 by using data from the Web of Science (WoS) and Altmetrics. We have analysed 23,719 documents through descriptive and statistical methodologies. First, the descriptive analysis showed the evolution of TE original articles in five online platforms (Twitter, Patents, Facebook, Mendeley readers and News) and compared the most relevant TE documents ranked by their traditional and alternative metrics of impact. Secondly, we carried out a correlation and factorial analysis and then constructed a linear regression model to define a mathematical equation for the prediction of future TE citations counts from Altmetric scores. The obtained results suggest a growing presence of TE in the online social web and the feasibility in the context of global science to anticipate TE traditional academic impact by using social media