ABSTRACT
Tissue processing in histotechnique is an important procedure after specimen collection involving three main procedures namely, dehydration using alcohol, clearing using xylene, and infiltration by paraffin wax. Isopropyl alcohol, the widely used dehydrating agent is toxic and when exposed to heated isopropyl alcohol fumes, it leads to numerous health hazards. Anhydrous copper sulphate is less toxic than isopropyl alcohol and requires less amount of exposure to the chemicals. The aim of the study was to investigate the dehydrating potential of anhydrous CuSO4 as an isopropyl alcohol substitute. METHODSA descriptive study of forty paired soft tissue specimens were obtained from the Department of Oral Pathology and Microbiology and were subjected to routine histopathological tissue processing with isopropyl alcohol and anhydrous CuSO4 as dehydrating agents. Histomorphological criteria namely nuclear staining, cytoplasmic staining, artefacts, and background staining were evaluated and the scores were tabulated, and statistical analysis was done using SPSS version 20 by IBM. RESULTSOur study results showed that 40 % of alcohol dehydrated tissue samples had better nuclear staining than tissue samples dehydrated by anhydrous copper sulphate and 15 % of alcohol dehydrated tissue samples had better cytoplasmic staining than tissues dehydrated by Anhydrous CuSO4. Background staining of more than 20 % was seen in anhydrous CuSO4 dehydrated tissue specimens than alcohol dehydrated tissue specimens. Artefacts were seen in similar ratios in both alcohol (80 %) and anhydrous copper sulphate (75 %) dehydrated tissue specimens. CONCLUSIONSAnhydrous CuSO4 has superior dehydrating properties than isopropyl alcohol which lead to over-dehydration of the tissue specimens. Further studies are required to validate the findings.