Study: A short and unique exposure to general anesthesia during early childhood is unlikely to have an impact on child development | Life

SYDNEY, Feb. 16 – New international research has found that despite concerns, a short period of general anesthesia in infants did not cause neurological development or behavior problems.

Led by researchers from the Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Australia, this new study is the first randomized trial to determine whether exposure to general anesthesia during early childhood can have a negative impact on children. the brain at the age of five.

The researchers examined 722 babies in Australia, Italy, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands and New Zealand, mostly male and less than 60 weeks of age. post-menstrual, a time when the brain is extremely vulnerable.

Babies all underwent surgical repair of the inguinal hernia, a common operation in infancy. Babies were randomly badigned to general anesthesia (363 children) or local anesthesia (359 children), which did not cause brain damage in animal models.

The general anesthesia lasted on average 54 minutes.

At the age of five, at a time when intelligence tests are a strong predictor of a child's future achievements, child psychologists badessed the IQ score, memory, attention, the executive function (skills that help memory, impulse control and planning) and the behavior of children.

The results, published in The lancet, showed that there was no significant difference in IQ scores between children exposed to general anesthesia, whose average IQ was 98.87, and those who had received local anesthesia and who had an average IQ of 99.08.

In addition, there were no significant differences in a range of other neurocognitive function tests.

The results are also valid even after the researchers took into account the age at birth, the country and all the missing data.

The researchers say that the study provides the strongest evidence so far that a single brief exposure to anesthesia is safe for young children.

However, they also add that since 84% of the children were men, as well as other limitations of the study, further research is needed to confirm the results in the girls as well as children exposed to longer and longer anesthesia and to different types of anesthesia.

"Nearly half of general anesthetics given to infants are used less than an hour, so our findings should rebadure health professionals and the millions of parents whose young children undergo procedures every year. surgical or diagnostic with anesthetics around the world, "says lead professor, Professor Andrew Davidson.

The question of whether the anesthetic is safe for children has been the subject of many recent studies, which have yielded conflicting results.

Previous animal studies have shown that exposure in young children can affect brain development after finding increased cell death in developing animals.

A large-scale Australian study published last year, covering 211,978 healthy children, found that children exposed to general anesthesia had lower reading and numeracy scores later in life. their childhood than unexposed children. However, an American study published the same month revealed no evidence suggesting that anesthesia before the age of three could affect intelligence, although the researchers noted that exposures repeated may affect other aspects of brain development. – AFP