Please note: In any event, the values of pressure and model selection in the Model Selection Guide are to be used as reference.
Mohan A, et al., Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, The Royal Surrey County Hospital. Presented at the 25th EFORT. Vienna, Austria. 2009.
SMART TM (OHK Medical Devices, Haifa, Israel) is a novel tourniquet system which has shown good results in upper limb surgery under local anaesthetic. A review of literature showed that no pain-tolerance study has been done with the use of this tourniquet system. We conducted this study to assess the pain-tolerance of the SMART tourniquet with a pneumatic tourniquet. In the first arm data was collected after applying the pneumatic tourniquet and the SMART tourniquet over the arm. In the second arm the pneumatic tourniquet and the SMART tourniquet were applied to the forearm. Twenty volunteers 10 men and 10 women aged 23-55 years participated in this study.
Each tourniquet was applied by the same investigator (AM). Pain and parasthesias were scored in the patients at 1 minute, 5 minutes and 10 minutes in both arms of the study. In the first arm parasthesias were more with the pneumatic tourniquet as compared to the SMART tourniquet. In most of the patients ulnar nerve parasthesias were more prevalent. In two patients the pneumatic tourniquet had to be removed because of unbearable pain and parasthesias. In the second arm pain was more with the SMART tourniquet in the first minute but after that it was equal to the pneumatic tourniquet or less at 5 minutes. Parasthesias were more with the pneumatic tourniquet and in three patients tourniquet had to be removed because of unbearable parasthesias. In conclusion, SMART tourniquet is a good tourniquet for hand surgery as it has comparatively better pain tolerance and produces less parasthesias as compared to pneumatic tourniquet.