Alwahaibi Nasar, Aljaradi Shaima, Alazri Horiyah
Department of Allied Health Sciences, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman.
Department of Pathology, Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, Muscat, Oman.
J Lab Physicians. 2018 Apr-Jun;10(2):189-193. doi: 10.4103/JLP.JLP_111_17.
Clearing is an essential step in processing tissue for light microscopy. Xylene is the clearing agent used most commonly worldwide. Xylene is toxic and therefore a threat to personnel working in histopathology laboratories. We evaluated a safer alternative clearing agent for use in the histopathology laboratory.
We used 230 formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue blocks from 19 different tissues. Half of the specimens were processed using xylene and half were processed using UltraClear™. Tissues were evaluated for eight parameters: sectioning, nuclear staining, cytoplasmic staining, overall cell morphology, clarity of staining, uniformity of staining, quality of immunohistochemistry (IHC), and cost.
Both UltraClear™ and xylene processed sections scored 100% for IHC. Sections processed using UltraClear™ were easy to cut (81.7%) as were xylene processed sections (96.5%). UltraClear™ processed sections showed 67%, 60.9%, 52.2%, 63.5%, and 67% for nuclear staining, cytoplasmic staining, cell morphology, clarity of staining, and uniformity of staining, respectively. UltraClear™ is twice as expensive as xylene. We found that tissues processed using UltraClear™ were easy to cut and worked well for both hematoxylin and eosin and IHC staining.
UltraClear™ is less toxic, less flammable, friendlier to the environment, and easy to handle, but it is two times expensive than xylene. The findings of this study recommend the use of UltraClear™ solution as a routine clearing agent in histopathology laboratories. However, further studies are required.
透明处理是组织光学显微镜检查处理过程中的关键步骤。二甲苯是全球最常用的透明剂。二甲苯具有毒性，因此对组织病理学实验室的工作人员构成威胁。我们评估了一种更安全的替代透明剂，供组织病理学实验室使用。
我们使用了来自19种不同组织的230个经福尔马林固定、石蜡包埋的组织块。一半标本用二甲苯处理，另一半用UltraClear™处理。对组织的八个参数进行评估：切片、细胞核染色、细胞质染色、整体细胞形态、染色清晰度、染色均匀性、免疫组织化学（IHC）质量和成本。
UltraClear™和二甲苯处理的切片在免疫组织化学方面的得分均为100%。使用UltraClear™处理的切片易于切割（81.7%），使用二甲苯处理的切片易于切割的比例为96.5%。UltraClear™处理的切片在细胞核染色、细胞质染色、细胞形态、染色清晰度和染色均匀性方面的表现分别为67%、60.9%、52.2%、63.5%和67%。UltraClear™的价格是二甲苯的两倍。我们发现，使用UltraClear™处理的组织易于切割，苏木精和伊红染色以及免疫组织化学染色效果都很好。
UltraClear™毒性较小、易燃性较低、对环境更友好且易于处理，但价格是二甲苯的两倍。本研究结果建议在组织病理学实验室将UltraClear™溶液用作常规透明剂。然而，还需要进一步研究。
