COMPARATIVE STUDY OF EFFICACY OF PAPANICOLAOU AND ACETO-ORCEIN STAINS IN DEMONSTRATING BARR BODIES IN BUCCAL MUCOSAL SMEARS

Establishing one’s sexual identity has a critical role in medical conditions like ambiguous genitalia and in crime investigations. There are various investigations to determine the sexual identity of a person and Barr body evaluation in buccal smears forms the first line of investigation. Barr body estimation in buccal mucosal scrapes has been demonstrated by using different stains like Papanicolaou, Aceto-Orcein(AO), Feulgen, Guard, Cresyl violet, Carbol fuchsin and fluorescent staining methods, but with varying efficacy.  The current study is done to evaluate the efficacy of Papanicolaou and AO stains in demonstration of Barr bodies. Materials and Methods:  A total of 207 medical students were included in the study. Two buccal smears were collected from each student and subsequently, one was stained with Aceto-Orcein by squash technique and the other with Papanicolaou stain. Both slides were evaluated for percentage of Barr bodies using 1000x magnification and cytomorphological features in 400x. Results: The percentage of Barr bodies in AO stained slides ranged from 5-18 among females and 0-8 in males, while with Papanicolaou stain the ranges recorded were 4 – 12 in females,  0 – 2 in males. The accuracy of AO and Papanicolaou stains for detecting sex accurately were 97% and 91% respectively.  Evaluation of the buccal smears was better in AO stained smears because of the clean background and better cytoplasmic and nuclear contrast in comparison to PAP stain. Conclusion: Aceto-Orcein staining method is rapid, economical, accurate, reproducible and comparable to Papanicolaou staining, for the detection of Barr body in buccal mucosal smears. Keywords: Aceto-Orcein, Papanicolaou, Buccal smears, Barr body.