Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Apr 16, 2015; 3(4): 368-370
Published online Apr 16, 2015. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v3.i4.368
Hair thread tourniquet syndrome in a toe of an 18 mo old girl
Jesse WP Kuiper, Niels de Korte
Jesse WP Kuiper, Niels de Korte, Department of Surgery, Spaarne Ziekenhuis, 2134 TM Hoofddorp, The Netherlands
Author contributions: Both authors contributed to this work.
Ethics approval: The study was reviewed and approved by the Spaarne Ziekenhuis Institutional Review Board.
Informed consent: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest: No conflicts of interest to be declared.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Jesse WP Kuiper, MD, Department of Surgery, Spaarne Ziekenhuis, Spaarnepoort 1, 2134 TM Hoofddorp, The Netherlands. jwp.kuiper@gmail.com
Telephone: +31-23-8907450 Fax: +31-23-8907451
Received: December 27, 2014
Peer-review started: December 29, 2014
First decision: January 20, 2015
Revised: January 26, 2015
Accepted: February 10, 2015
Article in press: February 12, 2015
Published online: April 16, 2015
Processing time: 107 Days and 8.9 Hours
Abstract

Hair thread tourniquet syndrome is rare and usually affects little children. If the tourniquet is not incised, the affected body part becomes ischemic or even necrotic. An 18 mo old girl was seen in the emergency ward with a painful, red and swollen third toe of the left foot. The toe appeared to be strangulated with a hair, and the diagnosis hair thread tourniquet syndrome was made. After incision of the hair tourniquet the symptoms soon subsided. The diagnosis is easily made if the clinical features are recognized. However, if the tourniquet is not cut through, the affected body part may become ischemic and even necrotic.

Keywords: Hair; Thread; Tourniquet; Syndrome; Toe

Core tip: Hair thread tourniquet syndrome is rare and usually affects little children. We present a case of an 18 mo old girl with a strangulated toe. After incision of the hair tourniquet the symptoms soon subsided. The diagnosis is easily made if the clinical features are recognized. However, if the tourniquet is not cut through, the affected body part may become ischemic and even necrotic.