Basic Science Imaging Platform

Plastination is the most important recently developed technique for the preservation of biological specimens. Plastination has been proposed as a suitable method to provide geometrical data for 3D reconstruction of hard and soft tissue.
Transparent serially sectioned plastinated slices permit visual clarity of gross structures under submacroscopic level (Sora et al.2007). Reconstruction computer models made from scanned plastinated sections may have benefits in terms of representing real tissue allowing that: 1) all structures can be represented individually or jointly and rotated in any plane; 2) diameters and angles of any anatomy structure can be conveniently measured; and 3) morphometric accuracy provides the user with information that is directly transferable to the operating room (Qiu et al. 2003;Yucel and Baskin 2004).

Brief technical description

Plastination allows for preservation of specimen with completely visible surface and high durability. Plastinated specimens are odorless, not toxic and mechanically resistant to a high degree. Tissue fluids and part of the lipids are replaced by certain polymers, yielding specimens that can be handled without gloves, do not smell or decay and, even, retain most microscopic properties of the original sample. Plastination is a procedure, during which water and fat of gross specimen are replaced by a polymerisable resin. First, specimens are dehydrated in an intermedium (f.e. acetone) with a boiling point below that of the resin. Then the intermedium is continuously evaporated under vacuum conditions. In this phase the resin replaces the intermedium. Finally, the resin is polymerised. Optical properties - opaque or transparent - and mechanical properties - smooth and flexible or hard can be chosen by appropriate composition of plastination resins. (MC Sora, Jan 2012)