Detection of cyanoacrylate tissue adhesives in histological sections

Previous histological studies of cyanoacrylate in wound healing have all used Oil-Red-O staining of paraffin sections prepared by routine method. In the course of our studies we began to suspect that artifact was being introduced because of dissolution of cyanoacrylate during processing. Accordingly, biopsis of wounds sealed with cyanoacrylate and pieces of cyanoacrylate of a standard known dimension with no associated tissue were observed after every stage of histological preparation. It was observed that approximately 80% of the cyanoacrylate was lost at the deparaffinization in xylene stage. Accordingly, a number of solvents were tested, and it was found that petroleum ether could be used to remove paraffin completely without the loss of any of the cyanoacrylate from the specimen. This technique has been used to view the location and ultimate fate of cyanoacrylate applied to wounds and examined at different stages in healing process. It is concluded that previous histological studies of cyanoacrylate in wound healing have been inaccurate due to leaching out of most of the tissue adhesive during deparaffinization of the specimen.