Abstract
Aims: Necrosis of fingers secondary to the use of digital tourniquet has been reported. Harmful effects of tourniquet are due to the high pressures generated beneath the tourniquet.
The aim of this study is to compare the pressures beneath the three different types of digital tourniquet namely rolled rubber glove, commercially available band and urinary catheter on human volunteers using a standardised device which directly measures the pressure and to assess pain score using visual analogue scale. Methods: Twenty healthy volunteers with eighty fingers in total were blinded and the pressures were measured for the three different types of tourniquet in a random fashion. Standard technique of tourniquet application was used. Result and Conclusion: The variation in pressures for each finger and between three different types of tourniquet was examined using the standard analysis of variance. This showed that there was no statistically significant variation between the fingers (F=1.87, 3,234 df) for one type of tourniquet. However the pressures in the catheter tourniquet group was significantly higher (F=53.59, 2,237 df). Analysis of pain perception showed that the catheter tourniquet led to substantially higher pain. We conclude that the catheter tourniquet generates high pressures and thereby increasing the potential risk of neurovascular complications.
Theses abstracts were prepared by Professor Dr. Frantz Langlais. Correspondence should be addressed to him at EFORT Central Office, Freihofstrasse 22, CH-8700 Küsnacht, Switzerland.
