Anesthesia may amplify risk of learning disabilities: Study

Rochester, March 28: The study conducted by Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. claims that infants and toddlers who take anesthesiadefine two or more times before the age of 3 are at a considerably higher risk of developing learning disabilities later in life.

Previous studies conducted on animals have indicated that anesthesiadefine can have an adverse effect on the developing brain. But this is the first human study that suggests an association between anesthesia and development of learning disabilities at a later stage in life.

Anesthesia, used to temporarily block the pain caused during a surgery or diagnostic procedure, may be harmful for infants and toddlers, the new study reveals.

As per statistics, about 600,000 children between birth and 3 years of age are annually exposed to anesthesia in the United States. It includes receiving anesthesia during operations to insert ear tubes to avoid infection, treat hernias or stitch up serious wounds.

Main author of the study, Dr. Robert Wilder, who is a consultant for anesthesiology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and an associate professor of anesthesiology at the Mayo Medical School, said, "We don't want to alarm parents...We have an association here between kids who received two or more anesthetics in surgery and an increase in learning disabilities, but we don't have clear causality that it was the anesthetics that caused the learning disabilities."

In the study, researchers reviewed the educational and medical records of 5,357 children from Olmsted County, Minnesota. All these children exhibited few common characteristics, like they all were born between 1976 and 1982, and remained in the same county until the age of 5.

According to the study, all children under the influence of anesthesia received nitrous oxide or laughing gas and halothane (which is no longer available in the United States and has been swapped by newer drugs that have similar effects).

These babies underwent surgery for a wide range of medical conditions. 26 percent of the infants underwent the insertion of tubes in the ears for removal of fluid (to thwart hearing loss and potential delays in speech and language skills), 25 percent needed general surgery, 13 percent required some type of orthopedic procedure while only 1 percent needed a neurological procedure.

Researchers found that one exposure to anesthesia was not dangerous, two exposures significantly increased the risk of developing a learning disability by 59 percent before the age of 19, and three or more exposures increased the risk factor by 2.6 times.

However, study researchers maintained that it is yet not certain if it is because of anesthesia or something else that children face such a problem in their life.

It is worth noting that a study carried out last year, too, had concluded that kids below the age of 3 who underwent hernia surgery had almost twice the risk of developing behavioral or developmental problems later in life compared to kids who had no surgery. This indicated that exposure to general anesthesia during the surgery might be the culprit in elevating the risk of developing learning disorders.

Dr. Randall Clark, chairman of the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ committee on pediatric anesthesia, and chairman of anesthesiology at Children's Hospital, Denver, held that this matter is of extreme importance to anesthesiologists.

"Research in this area is ramping up dramatically, and we are working with the FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] to get answers to these questions," he added.

The study was published in the April issue of Anesthesiology.