COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF ALTERNATE EMERGENCY FIXATIVES

Fixation is the cornerstone of histopathology.In order to preserve the morphology of the tissue for further details its essential that all the components are preserved in a life like state. Formalin is the universal fixative but on account of its carcinogenic potential needs to be replaced by the alternate fixatives which are easily available.This study aims to assess and compare the efficacy of alternative fixatives like local anesthetic solution, normal saline , distilled water and life buoy hand sanitizer by using H & E stained sections. Total sample size of 100 sections was obtained from 10 paraffin embedded tissue blocks obtained from Indian goat tongue each fixed in LA solution ,Normal Saline, Distilled water, Hand sanitizer and in Formalin for 12 hour and 24 hour and named as group A and group B respectively. The sections were evaluated on five parameters and then subjected to statistical analysis.Kruskal wallis test, Mann –Whitney U test and Kappa Statistic were used .Significant difference was noted in the four alternate fixatives( < 0.05).On the basis of the results obtained , Local Anesthetic solution was found to be used as an alternate emergency fixative.