Prevention of blood return into intravenous infusion tubing.

Different techniques have been described to prevent return flow of the blood into an intravenous line when both the intravenous infusion and blood pressure cuff have to be placed in the same arm especially during orthopedic surgeries of the upper limbs and with patients in lateral position. Some of these techniques involve placement of the part of the tubing under the blood pressure cuff, which would then occlude when the pressure in the cuff goes up. However, having tried this technique, we found it not fully effective in preventing the regurgitation of blood into infusion tubing. The events may distract the anesthesiologist from maintaining full intraoperative monitoring of anesthesia delivery and patients’ vital signs.