The effect of prefixation on the quality of vascular corrosion casts of rat heart.

To help define the optimal conditions for the preparation of vascular corrosion casts of rat heart, we examined the effect of prefixation with aldehyde fixatives on the perfusion rates of rat heart and on the quality of vascular casts. For these studies, beating hearts were removed from rats, cannulated via the aortic stump, arrested with KCl, perfused retrograde with buffered saline or fixative, and infused with resin to prepare corrosion casts. Fixatives used were 2.5% glutaraldehyde or 2% paraformaldehyde, and the casting resin consisted of a Mercox-methylmethacrylate mixture (4:1). All perfusion pressures were monitored at 80 to 100 mm Hg using a mercury manometer. The perfusion rate of control hearts was 13 to 14 mL/min. Prefixation with glutaraldehyde and paraformaldehyde reduced perfusion to 8.5 and 8.1 mL/min, respectively. Cast quality was observed grossly and with the scanning electron microscope. Control hearts yielded high quality, complete casts with 2570 capillaries/mm(2+). Casts from prefixed hearts exhibited areas of incomplete vessel filling and resisted complete tissue maceration, leaving tissue remnants adhering to the vessel replicas. Casts from glutaraldehyde-fixed hearts were of very poor quality. Our results indicate that prefixation is an unnecessary step in the preparation of vascular casts of rat heart and is inconsistent with cast quality.