Plastination: basic principles and methodology

Abstract

Plastination is the method of long term preservation of the biological tissues with completely visible surface and high durability. The plastinates are devoid of harmful effects of formalin and they serve as excellent teaching tools in education. Additionally, plastination is an outstanding tool to study cross-sectional anatomy. The three major methods used in plastination are silicone plastination, sheet plastination with epoxy method and sheet plastination with polyester method. Silicone plastination is the most versatile technique which can be used for the cadavers, organs, portions and slices. Fresh or formalin-fixed (embalmed) specimens can be plastinated with this technique. More flexible specimens can be obtained if fresh tissues are preferred. Silicone plastination consists of five main steps. These are the preparation of the specimen (dissection and fixation if necessary), dehydration, defatting (degreasing), forced impregnation and curing (hardening). Epoxy plastination preserves 2-5 mm slices of biological tissues by using epoxy resins. In this technique, all tissue fluid and a significant amount of fatty tissue is replaced with a curable epoxy resin mixture. Epoxy plastination method provides precise semi-transparent sectional specimens and in these preparations; gross anatomical structures can be examined with the naked eye in a superb quality down to a sub macroscopic level. Polyester plastination and classic silicone plastination techniques utilize the similar basic principles. In polyester plastination method, the tissue fluid is removed and is replaced with a curable polyester resin. This method can be used for head brain and body slices.

Environmental Durability Enhancement of Natural Fibres Using Plastination: A Feasibility Investigation on Bamboo

“…Silicone plastination (S-10 technique) is one of the simplest and most versatile types of plastination involving silicone polymers as impregnation mixtures and hardeners. Among different silicone polymers used, S-10 (polydimethylsiloxane) is the most popular and widely used polymer and results in more natural-looking, opaque specimens [17][18][19]. The S-10 technique is comprised of four plastination steps, namely fixation, dehydration, forced impregnation, and curing.…”

A Brief Review on the Principles of Human Cadaver Preservation and Monitoring of Microbial Degradation

“…This is a method or technique used for the long term preservation of body or part of body [8]. This technique was established by German scientist Gunther von Hagens in 1977 [9] in laboratory of Heidelberg University [10].…”

“…Silicone plastination is one of most common techniques of plastination which can be used for body, organs, part of organ and slices [8] (Figure 3). The Plastination techniques depend on vacuum of original body or tissue fluid and replace it by special curable polymer of the standard silicone S-10 [9].…”

Colorimetric evaluation of cross‐sectional silicone plastination of the Total head region of sheep and Deplastination of the histological sections of brain tissue

“…Adaptation to the cross‐sectional anatomy may cause anxiety in the students learning anatomy with a traditional approach due to the fact that it requires to figure out and comprehend the structures beyond systematic anatomy. Thus, it is recommended to acquire new and various tools according to the developing technology (Ghosh, 2015; Sargon & Tatar, 2014). It is suggested that plastination is one of the best preservation methods for cross‐sectional anatomic structure (Siddiquey et al, 2009).…”