Over the past decade, a large body of evidence has suggested that there may be an association between anesthesia exposure and neurocognitive deficits in children. The majority of data are derived from animal studies, but some human studies support an association between single or multiple anesthesia exposures in young children and cognitive deficits.1 With the exception of a recent prospective study and a recent ambidirectional study,2,3 human studies are limited to retrospective cohort studies that lack adequate controls or attention to the impact of confounding variables. On December 14, 2016, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued the warning that “repeated or lengthy use of general anesthetic and sedation drugs during surgeries or procedures in children younger than 3 years or in pregnant women during their third trimester may affect the development of children’s brains.
Recent Posts
- 2025 Annual Meeting, presented by the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS) and the Society of Critical Care Anesthesiologists (SOCCA), March 20 – 23, 2025, Honolulu, HI
- Exposure to Operative Anesthesia in Childhood and Subsequent Neurobehavioral Diagnoses: A Natural Experiment Using Appendectomy
- Long-term outcomes of early exposure to repeated general anaesthesia in children with cystic fibrosis (CF-GAIN): a multicentre, open-label, randomised controlled phase 4 trial. Claire Elizabeth Wainwright, et al. June 2024
- Columbia University Physician Scientist and SmartTots Investigator, Caleb Ing, MD, publishes new findings regarding prenatal exposure to general anesthesia and subsequent risk to the child.
- A Scoping Review of the Mechanisms Underlying Developmental Anesthetic Neurotoxicity