BACKGROUND: Venous lidocaine retention with tourniquet has a possibility to prevent propofol injection pain efficiently. We performed the study to assess the efficacy of various intravenous lidocaine pretreatment methods with tourniquet on reducing propofol-induced injection pain, especially the effect of varying the concentration and dose of lidocaine. METHODS: In order to know the effect of lidocaine pretreatment with tourniquet on prevention of propofol-induced injection pain, one hundred patients were divided into four groups by the method of pretreatment; 1% lidocaine of 1 mg/kg (lidocaine pretreatment, LPT1 n = 25); 0.5% lidocaine of 1 mg/kg (LPT2, n = 25); 1% lidocaine of 0.5 mg/kg (LPT3, n = 25); 5 ml of saline pretreatment (saline pretreatment, SPT, n = 25). After 5 minutes of pretreatment, propofol-induced pain was measured immediately after injection of 1 mg/kg propofol with tourniquet inflation and after deflation of tourniquet, and after a second injection of 1 mg/kg propofol by use of the numerical rating scale and pain score of four categories. We selected maximal values of three times measurement for comparison. RESULTS: All groups of lidocaine pretreatment (pain incidence of LPT1; 20%, LPT2; 16% and LPT3; 36%, respectively) significantly reduced the incidence of propofol-induced injection pain compared to the saline pretreatment group (96%) (P <0.05). Lidocaine pretreatment groups had dramatically lower intensity of pain compared with saline pretreatment (P <0.05). However, there were no differences among the lidocaine pretreatment groups (P > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: This result indicates that lidocaine pretreatment with tourniquet has an effect on the prevention of propofol-induced injection pain. However, we recommend pretreatment with 0.5 1% lidocaine of 1 mg/kg by use of tourniquet and propofol injection immediately after deflation of the tourniquet in practice.