Revelation in the field of tissue preservation - a preliminary study on natural formalin substitutes

Abstract

Introduction: The quest for formalin substitutes has long been going on due to its health hazards. Honey has been proven as a safe alternative to formalin. However, we explored more economical, eco-friendly & readily available substances like sugar & jaggery as natural substitutes for formalin. The aim of this study was to compare the tissue fixation abilities of honey, sugar syrup & jaggery syrup with that of formalin using H & E stain and to determine the best fixative among the three.

Materials and methods: Commercially available fresh goat meat (buccal mucosa) was cut into five bits & each bit was placed in five different containers containing 10% buffered formalin, distilled water, 20% honey, 20% sugar syrup & 30% jaggery syrup with formalin as positive control & distilled water as negative control. 24 hours tissue fixation was attained at room temperature followed by conventional processing and staining. The tissue sections were assessed for cytoplasmic, nuclear details & staining quality under light microscopy. Each criteria was rated on a scale of 1- 4 (1 for poor & 4 for excellent) & the whole procedure was blinded. RESULTS were analysed by Kruskal Wallis ANOVA test. Inter-observer variability was determined by Kappa statistics.

Results: The preservation of tissue by honey, sugar & jaggery syrup was comparable to that of formalin. Among the three natural fixatives, jaggery syrup excelled.

Conclusion: Our effort of using sugar and jaggery for tissue fixation is first of its kind and yielded good results. Hence they can be successfully adopted in routine histopathology laboratories in place of formalin.

Clinical relevance: Natural fixatives can be used in place of the hazardous formalin with equal efficiency. Also, jaggery being highly economical and universally available can be employed in large scale as in screening camps. How to cite this article: Patil S, Premalatha B R, Rao R S, Ganavi B S. Revelation in the Field of Tissue Preservation - A Preliminary Study on Natural Formalin Substitutes. J Int Oral Health 2013; 5(1):31-38.

Keywords: Formalin substitutes; Honey; Natural tissue fixatives; Non- formalin fixatives; Sugar syrup; jaggery syrup.

Figure 1: Photomicrograph of the tissues fixed in: A. Formalin, B. Honey, C. Sugar syrup, D. Molasses syrup, E. Distilled water (H & E, 40X)

Graph 1: Mean values of different fixatives

Figure 2: A. Jaggery, B. Molasses

Table 4: The possible mechanism of fixation by honey, sugar & jaggery

Figure 3: Photograph of gross tissue specimens fixed in: A. Formalin, B. Honey, C. Sugar syrup, D. Jaggery syrup, E. Distilled water