Early childhood exposure to short periods of sevoflurane is not associated with later, lasting cognitive deficits

Background: A detrimental effect of commonly used anesthetics on the neurodevelopmental and behavioral parameters has long been shown in young animals subjected to early childhood anesthesia. Epidemiologic studies suggest the possibility of a modestly elevated risk of adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in children exposed to anesthesia during early childhood. However, these results are still preliminary and inconclusive.

Aim: To further elucidate the probability of occurrence of such adverse outcomes, we evaluated cognitive performance of children who underwent general anesthesia early in their childhood.

Method: One hundred and fifteen children aged 5-16 years with established glaucoma were included in the study. Of these, 68 children had a history of at least one general anesthesia with sevoflurane before age 3. Phonemic and semantic verbal fluency, and forward and backward digit span tests were performed to evaluate cognitive function in the study subjects.

Results: The two-way anova revealed that all these variables showed significant changes in various age groups, but they were comparable among subjects with no, single, or multiple childhood anesthesia.

Conclusion: It can be concluded that brief periods of anesthesia with single anesthetic sevoflurane may be safe for children under age 3.