Alternatives to Animal Testing and Experimentation
Online ISSN : 2185-4726
Print ISSN : 1344-0411
ISSN-L : 1344-0411
Volume 26, Issue 2
Displaying 1-1 of 1 articles from this issue
Original Article
  • Ryuji Kawabata, Takashi Ichihara
    2021 Volume 26 Issue 2 Pages 41-49
    Published: 2021
    Released on J-STAGE: February 02, 2022
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS

    The fundamental principles of research using laboratory animals are based on the proposal by Russell and Burch in 1959. Laboratory animals are used to advance the field of life sciences or as anatomical materials, enabling medical students to understand the structure and mechanics of the human body. Although organisms should not be killed, they cannot be thoroughly examined without killing. The mechanisms occurring in the body of organisms can be identified without killing animals. One method is to fix the whole animal or part of the animal tissues. Previously, we developed and reported a new method of whole-body fixation of rats using Farmer’s fixative. In this study, we applied our fixation method to fetal pigs. Fetal pigs have a large size and morphology that is similar to that of the human body. Accordingly, fetal pigs serve as great models for investigating "fetal circulation", which is characteristic of prenatal development. In this paper, we report the appearance and impression of specimens based on the fixation method using fetal pigs as teaching materials for anatomy, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of fixed pigs compared with fixed rats. Overall, our developed method has the potential to meet the "Reduction" of the 3Rs, which are the principles of animal experiments.

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