Natural versus synthetic fixative in oral cytological smears – A double blind study.

Abstract

Fixation in cytology is to preserve and maintain clear and consistent morphological features. Ethanol is most commonly used a gold standard fixative in cytology, but it has few disadvantages such as expensive, flammable, evaporates easily, subjected to pilferage and not easily available. So honey can be used as fixative as it contains several minerals, trace elements, vitamins, carbohydrates and acts as a fixative because of its inherent properties by enabling cellular preservation and dehydration. Considering this objective of present study is to evaluate the fixative properties of honey in comparison with ethanol in a double blinded manner.