Fig. 1

First trial: Bacterial load on different (treated) tourniquets. In one outpatient clinic, new (conventional: grey, silicone: petrol blue) tourniquets were used for 1 day and subsequently sampled at the inner side of the tourniquets. They were either never cleaned (diamond, light) or cleaned after each use with disinfectant wipes (triangle, dark). Individual values (symbols) with averages (black bar) were indicated as colony forming units (cfu) per contact plate. Pairwise Kruskal-Wallis Tests within each setting are demonstrated with brackets