A Study Investigating Ways to Make Local Anaesthetic Hand Surgery Less Painful - Reducing Tourniquet Associated Pain

Summary

Hand surgery requires a reduced blood flow to the hand during the operation, which is achieved using a tourniquet (tightly inflated circumferential cuff) around the upper arm. However this tourniquet is painful. This study investigates whether breathing oxygen can reduce the pain associated with the tourniquet to both improve patient experience and potentially to allow longer operations to be completed under a local anaesthetic (rather than a general anaesthetic, where the patient is put to sleep, which is more costly, time consuming and risky for the patient).

Timeline

Start

2012-02

Primary completion

2012-06

Completion

2012-06

Publications

• White N, Dobbs TD, Murphy GRF, Khan K, Batt JP, Cogswell LK. Oxygen reduces tourniquet-associated pain: a double-blind, randomized, controlled trial for application in hand surgery. Plast Reconstr Surg. 2015 Apr;135(4):721e-730e. doi: 10.1097/PRS.0000000000001028.

Drugs

Indications

No indication recorded.