무릎 관절과 주위조직의 Sheet Plastination

Abstract

In the plastination process, water and lipids in biological tissues are replaced by curable polymer which are subsequently hardened. The procedure consists of fixation, dehydration, forced impregnation in a vacuum, and hardening. After distention of the knee joint capsule by 20% formalin injection the specimen was immersed in 5% formalin for 1 week, the knee joint could be plastinated. Entire specimen should be approximately 25cm in length(10cm below and 15cm above the femorotibial joint). Maintaining a distended capsule during the curing of the impregnation polymer provides well defined and expanded joint cavity. Slice thickness for sheet plastination, filling method, was 2.5-3mm in sagittal sections. Biodur E12/E1 epoxy resin mixture was used for transparancy. Epoxy resin mixture yields flexible, resilient specimens, allows transparancy. While not an exact model of natural structure, the plastinated knee joint specimen provides many important advantages to understand the structure of knee joint and around tissue in the gross anatomy and histology.