Richard Cartun asked about "Ultram" fixative, which Cindy Dubois informs us is actually Ultrum fixative.
According to its MSDS (dated 2003), Ultrum II tissue fixative contains glutaraldehyde, phenol, zinc chloride, sodium acetate, citric acid, and water. It is offered by American Master*Tech Scientific, Inc. in Lodi CA. http://www.americanmastertech.com/histologysupply.htm They also supply genuine B5 fixative, Bouin's fixative, and Carnoy's fixative. Some patent applications from a few years back suggest that Ultrum II was used to fix prostate biopsy specimens. Obviously glutaraldehyde and phenol both have safety and environmental problems of their own. Whether they would practically and legally support IHC would be hard to predict. And in diagnosing prostate cancer, the use of nucleoli as a criterion of malignancy requires NBF - other fixatives are likely to result in demonstrating nucleoli in benign cells. Bob Richmond Samurai Pathologist Knoxville TN _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet
