Evaluation of efficacy of commercially available decalcifying agents

Aims and Objective: Decalcification of hard tissues specimens for the purpose of histopathological examination is often a time-consuming process and lead to undue delay in diagnosis. As a part of search for an ideal decalcifying agent, we designed the present study to compare two commercial decalcifying agents with 5% nitric acid Materials and Methods: Size matched bone specimens from human mandible were decalcified, using 5% Nitric acid, commercial decalcifying agents: Product A and Product B (n=22 each). Decalcified specimens were processed, sectioned, stained with H&E stain and evaluated for different parameters such as microtomy, staining quality, structural integrity, preservation of cellularity and cellular and nuclear details. The results were compared between the groups using Krunskal Wallis test and Mann-Whitney U test. Results: 5% Nitric acid is found to be significantly better in terms of microtomy, staining characteristics and structural integrity with p-value being 0.002, 0.005 and 0.004 respectively when compared to Product A. Similarly microtomy, staining characteristics and preservation of cellularity were noted to be superior with 5% Nitric acid in comparison with Product B, with p-value of 0.004, 0.001 and 0.019 respectively. None of the assessed parameters showed significant difference between Product A and Product B groups. Conclusion: We found 5% nitric acid to be a better decalcifying agent compared to the commercial decalcifying agents used in this study. When time is a constrain, Product A i.e Osteomoll is a good choice, as the process of decalcification is faster without compromising the quality to a great extent. Keywords: Decalcification, 5% Nitric acid, Commercial decalcifying agents.