Abstract
Many studies have demonstrated a neurodegenerative effect of anaesthetic drugs in puppy animals, raising the concern that similar effects can happen in children, and that the administration of anaesthesia in young children undergoing surgical or diagnostic procedures may cause long term neurocognitive impairment. Thus, several epidemiological studies have been performed with the aim to find a possible association between early anaesthesia exposure and poor long term outcome, like learning disabilities or worse school grading and two prospective trials are currently running, the GAS and the PANDA study. Interim results from the GAS study, which compared infants undergoing general and regional anaesthesia for hernia repair, have demonstrated that a single exposure of about one hour of anaesthesia does not affect the neurological outcome at 2 years of age. Nowadays most of the knowledge in the field of “anaesthesia and potential long term effects” comes from studies performed in animals, but findings are difficult to extrapolate and they do not predict results from similar studies performed in humans. Nonetheless, studies in animals are necessary to better understand the effects of anaesthetics and the mechanistic of potential anaesthesia-related neurotoxicity. Studies in humans must run in parallel to definitively answer the question if similar effects may occur in our young patients.