Introduction: Fixatives are crucial in the preparation of tissue for pathological diagnosis. The gold standard for tissue specimen fixation is formalin. Since formalin is costly, carcinogenic, and difficult to get, there is interest in finding a viable replacement. In addition to being a dehydrator, honey also contains antibacterial and antioxidant qualities. The risks associated with local anaesthetics (LA), which are accessible in any clinic, are negligible. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of using honey and a local anaesthetic solution in place of formalin as a fixative for tissue processing.
Aim: To analyse the staining parameters of honey and local anaesthetic with formalin as tissue fixatives for traditional hematoxylin and eosin staining (H&E) procedures
Methodology: All the tissue samples were extracted from animals (goat tongue). The collected tissue samples were divided into the following three groups: Group A- tissues fixed in neutral buffered formalin (standard) (n = 20), Group B- tissues fixed in processed honey solution (n = 20), and Group C- tissues fixed in local anaesthetic solution (n = 20). Each tissue was fixed in an appropriate volume of solution for 24 hours, followed by standard procedures. After being cut into sections and coated with hematoxylin and eosin, tissues were studied to identify their quality and other characteristics.
Results: 100% of formalin-fixed, 79% of honey-fixed, and 80% of local anaesthesia-fixed tissue sections were acceptable. In all three fixatives, there were statistically significant variations in intracellular staining, cell differentiation, staining uniformity, clarity, and tissue architecture. From statistical analysis, significant differences were found in all three fixatives on cytoplasmic staining, cell morphology, clarity of staining, uniformity of staining, and tissue architecture.
Conclusion: Although there was a mild variation in staining quality, honey and local anaesthetics can be safely used as an alternate emergency fixative.
