Anesthetia does not appear to influence children's brain

Young children exposed to a brief, single anesthetic did not show any evidence of adverse long-term effects on the brain, according to a new Danish study published in the May issue of Anesthesiology. While past studies in young animals have shown anesthetics cause potential developmental and behavioral changes, this particular study found no evidence of a similar detrimental effect in children.

The applicability of animal data to humans undergoing anesthesia early in life remains uncertain, partly due to the difficulty in differentiating anesthetic exposure and pathology in animals to clinically meaningful effects in patients. However, the new study is one of a few to analyze young children undergoing the same surgery and adjust for confounding factors among those patients.

"Fortunately, our study did not find a relation between neuro-degeneration and anesthesia in young children. The findings should help reassure parents that if their child needs to undergo surgery, a minimal amount of anesthesia does not appear to influence subsequent education achievements later in life," said Tom G. Hansen, M.D., Ph.D. "However, we cannot fully conclude that anesthetics are safe in all cases. More human data need to be collected to exclude effects in more particular domains of neurobehavioral outcome."