Objective To develop a precise and reliable method to determine mammalian cell survival using the triphe-nyltetrazolium chloride (TTC) solution.Methods Different amounts of TTC solution were added to the cultured cells in order to find the optimal concentration .The correlation between the cell number and the measured optic density value was analyzed.In addition, the TTC method was compared with traditional MTT assay .Results The TTC assay could precisely reveal the viability of cultured cells as well as the MTT method , but the non-specific reaction of the MTT reagent by other antioxidants could result in unreliable overestimation of the cell number .Conclusion The TTC assay can be used to deter-mine the survival of cultured cells more precisely .