Comparison of efficacy of local anesthetic solution, distilled water and normal saline as emergency fixatives

CONTEXT: Adequate tissue fixation is fundamental to good quality histological sections. Owing to undesirable effects of 10% buffered formalin, its availability in clinics is questionable. Thus, the present study was conducted with a novel approach to fixation, together with the scope of finding fixative properties of more commonly used reagents available at the clinics. AIMS: The present study was aimed to compare the efficacy of local anesthetic solution, normal saline (NS) and distilled water (DW) with that of 10% neutral-buffered formalin. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: It is a single-blinded study where histological assessment of fixation was done to assert if the tissues procured were sufficient or insufficient for the clinical diagnosis with/without any problems. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Forty soft-tissue specimens obtained from 2 goat tongue were used. Tissues each were directly immersed in local anesthesia, DW, NS solution and formalin for 12 and 24 h each and labeled as Group I and Group II, respectively. The sections were evaluated for staining quality and were subjected to statistical analysis. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: Kruskal–Wallis test was employed to assess the differences in histological quality scores. Comparison between the tissues of the two groups was estimated with Mann–Whitney U-test. Kappa Statistic was used to measure the interobserver variation. RESULTS: There was a significant difference (P ≤ 0.05) in the efficacy of all the three emergency fixatives. CONCLUSIONS: On the basis of the results obtained, local anesthetic solution can be used as an emergency fixative.