Fluorochrome Labeled Bone (Part I): Long-term Fixation Results

Abstract

Laboratories investigating dental and bone diseases or orthopedic implant devices have used fluorochrome labels to quantify bone growth for over 40 years. Bone fixation with 10% neutral buffered formalin has been used by many of these laboratories. Routine practice has been to fix the bone samples in formalin for no more than 48 hr, wash them in water, and place the specimens in 40–70% ethanol for further fixation and/or storage. This paper reports a study that builds on a previous investigation and demonstrates fixation of bones for up to 1 yr in 10% neutral buffered formalin caused no evident loss of fluorochrome labels. However, the study also demonstrates that fixation in Safefix® at 1 yr caused mixed results. Although most of the 1 yr slides exhibited no apparent fading of the fluorochromes, there were two slides that did have fading of the labels. (The J Histotechnol 25:99, 2002)

Submitted March 15, 2002; accepted April 5, 2002

Keywords:

• antibiotic
• fluorochromes
• fluorochrome labeling
• 10% NBF
• leaching
• mineralized bone
• Safefix®
• tetracycline