STUDY OF DIFFERENT METHODS OF OBTAINING DRY BONES FROM FORMALIN FIXED DISSECTED HUMAN CADAVERS

Abstract

Background: Dried human bones are essential to conduct osteology teaching learning sessions for health professional education, but its scarcity has been felt severely due to lack of simple and easy bone extraction method. Although several methods are practiced; they have their own fallacies. Hence, this study was conducted to explore simple and short method.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in Nepalese Army Institute of Health Sciences (NAIHS) from April 2021 to October 2021 after obtaining ethical clearance from Institutional Review Committee, NAIHS (Reg. No- 424). Formalin fixed cadavers were used to obtain the bones by burial, maceration and chemical methods. In burial method, 600 bones were buried in the ground at 2 feet depth for six months just before monsoon. In maceration method, 200 bones were dipped in a bucket containing cow dung and water and left in the sun for 15 days. In chemical method, 50 bones were treated with washing soda for 19 hours. Remaining soft tissue was scraped, cleaned and bones were dried for 2 to 3 days.

Results: Bones obtained by burial method were of good quality without any cracks but few soft tissue and mud was present which had to be cleaned manually. Bones obtained by maceration method was initially black in color. On chemical method, clean bones were obtained with few cracks.

Conclusions: Among the above mentioned three methods, maceration method was less time consuming. Chemical method was faster but concentration of chemical should be proper to prevent cracks.