Our brains are from medico-legal Forensic cases and we are in discussion as how long to fix brains before grossing/processing?
Our autopsy cases vary as to the decedent's health before death, mode of death, what the length of time the decedent was found, the conditions of where the decedent was found, length of time the decedent was stored in the mortuary fridge , until the autopsy was performed.
We use 10% formal saline and fix the brains up to 4 weeks with reasonably good fixation.
However some doctors want to gross within 2 weeks. As a result we have problems with the sections washing off during staining despite using protocols to help sections adhere to the slides.
Therefore I would like some advice which is the better practice or is there a better protocol.
I know technology has improved but for labs who are cash strapped we are not able to go that route.
If you are doing only classic morphology (histological stains, IHC), formalin for 1-2 weeks (depending on the protocol of your institution) before grossing should be fine. If you are going to test for substances, metabolites or nucleic acids, flash-freezing a sample in liquid nitrogen and storing at -80ºC until analysis would be better.
The brain is to be fixed in 10% formal saline solution in proper way by hanging upside down by means of a wire or sturdy cotton thread passed through basilar artery. The whole brain should be completely submerged in the container filled with 10% formal saline with cotton put at the bottom so that none of the parietal lobe gets compressed. In this state as per my practical experience, more than 10 days fixation in this process gives a good result in examining the structures for pathology or trauma followed by slicing and staining for histopathological examination.
Though 2weeks fixation is best, but in India, there is a lot of time constraint for the reporting, so experiments showed a minimum of 10days' proper fixation yields good results.
- Badges
- Science topic