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The Effects of Dilute Epinephrine Saline Irrigation on the Need for Tourniquet Use in Routine Arthroscopic Knee Surgery

Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Wilford Hall Medical Center, Lackland Air Force Base, Texas

* Address correspondence and reprint requests to Albert D. Olszewski, MD, 200 Conway Drive, Kalispell, MT 59901

A prospective, randomized, double-blinded study was performed to determine whether dilute epinephrine saline irrigation (1 mg/l) delivered by gravity flow would significantly reduce the need for tourniquet use during routine arthroscopic surgery. One hundred five patients requiring straightforward arthroscopic knee surgery were randomly assigned to either an epinephrine group that received dilute epinephrine irrigation by gravity flow or to a placebo group that received normal saline irrigation by gravity flow. The need for tourniquet use and the tourniquet time, total operative time, and volume of irrigation fluid used were documented and compared between the two groups. A tourniquet was required 50% less often in the epinephrine group than in the placebo group. This difference was found to be statistically significant using the Student’s t-test (P < 0.008, 0.05). If a tourniquet was required, the presence of dilute epinephrine in the irrigation fluid did not affect the overall tourniquet time or the ratio of tourniquet time to total operative time. We believe this study proved that dilute epinephrine irrigation is effective in decreasing the need for tourniquet use during routine arthroscopic knee surgery.

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