Preservation of the human cochlea with two different fixatives.

The cochlear morphology of eight inner ears from 4 patients was studied by electron microscopy. The perilymphatic perfusion was performed in 2 of them 2 and 2 1/2 h and in 2 others, 10 and 11 h post mortem. In each patient, Karnovsky's fixative was used in one ear and Britta's fixative in the other. No structural differences between the two ears were ascertained in the patients with a short post-mortem fixation time. The cochleas with 2 h post-mortem fixation time were better preserved than those with the 10 and 11 h delay. The cochleas with the longer delay from death to perilymphatic perfusion were still fairly well preserved. However, in these cochleas the stronger fixative (Britta's fixative) gave a better preservation.