Anesthesia In Small Children May Influence Their Ability To Understand, Communicate

Researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital have found that the youngest surgical patients may later be affected due to their inability to properly communicate from use of anesthesia. Could the drug harm the developing brain?

For the study, researchers compared kids who had surgery before the age of 4 with peers of the same age, gender and socioeconomic status. The study included 106 5- to 18-year-olds who underwent assessments to measure brain development as researchers looked at MRI images of the children's brains.

"The ultimate goal of our laboratory and clinical research is to improve safety and outcomes in young children who have no choice but to undergo surgery with anesthesia to treat their serious health concerns," said Andreas Loepke, lead study author and an anesthesiologist in the Department of Anesthesiology at Cincinnati Children's. "We also have to better understand to what extent anesthetics and other factors contribute to learning abnormalities in children before making drastic changes to our current practice, which by all measures has become very safe."

Findings revealed that many of the children appeared to have lower language abilities and cognition, with lower brain mass as well.

However, researchers also stressed that the average scores were in the normal range for all participants, regardless of their surgical history. It was when compared with children who had not undergone surgery that their listening comprehension and performance IQ was lower, along with lower gray matter density in the occipital cortex and cerebellum of the brain.

"These children are not dying. These effects are fairly subtle, but they're still concerning, and that's why I think we need to act on them," Loepke concluded.

More information regarding the findings can be seen via the journal Pediatrics.

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