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Panel Studies Potential Health Risks of Anesthesia Use in Young Children

31 Mar

Earlier this month an FDA advisory panel met regarding a very important topic: whether or not anesthesia poses cognitive and learning disability risks when used in young children. Since this involves millions of medical procedures, the importance of this topic is pretty obvious.

There have been a number of animal studies on the subject which have led to this meeting. According to Dr. Bob Rappaport, the Food and Drug Administration’s director of the division of anesthesia and analgesia products, these studies have suggested that there may be a correlation between anesthesia exposure and brain cell death or learning problems.

The FDA panel will evaluate this research, consider what further research may be needed, and decide what if anything parents should be presented if their children will be going into surgery.

“How do we communicate what we do know at this point without causing undue concern in parents and in physicians?", asked Dr. Rappaport.

Taking a look at the animal studies more closely, rodents and monkeys that were exposed to anesthesia at an age that is roughly equivalent to children under the age of four experienced brain cell death. An additional study, one done by the FDA, found that exposing newborn rhesus monkeys to 24 hours of anesthesia resulted in poorer tests performances for memory, attention and learning.
 
"We don’t know what this means for children at this time," said Dr. Rappaport. "That’s exactly why it’s so critical that we get all of the necessary information."

It’s difficult to do similar controlled studies with children, so when examining humans, experts look to children who have learning disabilities and trace back to see if they had anesthesia when they were younger. However, this method is not considered very reliable.

In the absence of absolutely certain evidence, ultimately the dilemma is this: most young children who are being given anesthesia absolutely need the surgery performed on them. So, what do you do?

“What we know is that not giving anesthesia and appropriate medication to manage a child’s pain during surgery does have long-term adverse affects on a child – physical as well as emotional,” said Dr. Jayant Deshpande, another committee member, pediatrician and anesthesiologist who is a senior vice president at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. “So because the child needs surgery today, we are going to use the best information that we have and use the anesthetics.”

Most of the studies so far the studies have involved the common anesthetic, ketamine. Some of the questions experts still have involve dose, age or length of exposure, and how each may relate to the risks.