Fig. 3

A comparison of the required pressure levels and applied pressure gradients for three types of cuff design. a: a wide, modern pneumatic surgical tourniquet cuff; b: a non-pneumatic, inelastic, belt-tightened cuff typically found in pre-hospital trauma settings; and c: a non-pneumatic elastic ring designed to be rolled up the limb to exsanguinate and occlude blood flow in one motion. The narrow designs of (b) and (c) require increased tourniquet pressure levels to occlude blood flow. The narrow distance for the changes in applied pressure to occur results in high applied pressure gradients in cuffs (b) and (c). (Reproduced with permission of Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc., from: Noordin S, McEwen JA, Kragh CJF, Eisen A, Masri BA. Surgical Tourniquets in Orthopaedics: The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery-American Volume. 2009;91(12):2958–2967. The Creative Commons license does not apply to this content. Use of the material in any format is prohibited without written permission from the publisher, Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Please contact permissions@lww.com for further information)