Analysis of the Elnady Technique on Cadaveric Tissues: A Low Barrier-to-Entry to Increase Tissue Handling Comfort, Longevity, and Safety

The Elnady technique, glycerin impregnation, stands to ameliorate a cost problem by allowing the preservation of prosection specimens in-house. When using this technique, some shrinkage is observed after dehydrating the tissues with acetone. To quantify this and to demonstrate the technique, three human brains (one whole brain, one hemisection, and one hippocampus dissection) and one heart were dehydrated using >99.5% acetone baths at room temperature; baths were changed weekly with hydrometer readings to measure purity. Organs were then immersed in glycerin baths for two weeks, removed, drained, and placed in cornstarch for curing. Dimensional measurements of organs were taken before and after treatment. There was shrinkage of the heart and brain circumference by approximately 10%, with similar shrinkages in other dimensions. Acetone removed much of the fat left after dissection of the heart and caused significant hardening of the aorta, which softened after exposure to glycerin and subsequent curing with cornstarch. Twenty-four months later, a set of three whole brains were impregnated with glycerin using the same methods. The mass, volume, and circumference were measured before and after treatment. The whole brains were dissected to expose the hippocampus. No acetone was found in the lateral ventricles of the whole brains. The whole brain impregnated with glycerin 24 months prior no longer smelled of acetone, while the recently treated brains did. At least six days after treatment, the mass of the recently treated whole brains had decreased.