Introduction

The present invention relates to an innovative process for the long-term preservation of anatomical pieces or reduced surgical samples of particular interest, to be reused for didactic-training purposes or for subsequent investigations and / or in the light of new antibodies put on the market for the detection of characterizing antigenic structures, especially in the field of oncology.

Technical features

The aim of the present invention is to overcome the drawbacks of the technique known up to now by implementing a procedure for preserving anatomical pieces or fragments which allows both a dehydration of the tissues following a variable drying period with replacement of water with a inert substance, and subsequent rehydration, even after long periods of time, up to 20 years in our experience, in order to conduct any investigations in the pathological anatomy laboratories without resorting to the conservation of anatomical pieces in formalin or paraffin-reduced samples. Another purpose of the invention is to have at any time available anatomical material of particular interest for iconographic, didactic, study purposes and pending new findings and / or bio-markers. The methodology includes a succession of macro-phases: a pre-treatment of the material available and previously fixed in formalin, a succession of phases for the dehydration of the material by treatment with ethyl alcohol, a succession of phases for the clarification of the material through the use of some compounds clarifying chemicals and a final drying phase to obtain the final product in dehydrated form.

Possible Applications

• Production of anatomical samples for research laboratories, for future studies;
• Production of biotechnical anatomical samples which need to have at any time available anatomical material for iconographic, didactic and study purposes;

Advantages

• Possibility of rehydrating the finished product for study purposes;
• Odourless, non-greasy, not very ductile and has a dry weight corresponding to a quarter of the pre-existing material fixed in formalin;
• The finished product lends itself well to making cuts;
• Finished product characterized by a minimum size.