Why the study?
Does early childhood exposure to surgery and anesthesia increase the risk of developmental and behavioral disorders compared to unexposed siblings?
Does early childhood exposure to surgery and anesthesia increase the risk of developmental and behavioral disorders compared to unexposed siblings?
Early childhood exposure to surgery and anesthesia before age 3 is associated with a 60% increased risk of subsequent developmental and behavioral disorders compared to unexposed siblings, though causality remains unclear.
Should not yet change practice for necessary procedures; leaves open causality of anesthesia exposure on neurodevelopment.
The risk of being subsequently diagnosed with developmental and behavioral disorders in children who were enrolled in a state Medicaid program and who had surgery when they were younger than 3 years was 60% greater than that of a similar group of siblings who did not undergo surgery. More tightly matched pairwise analyses indicate that the extent to which the excess risk is causally attributable to anesthesia or mediated by unmeasured factors remains to be determined.
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DiMaggio et al. (2011) studied this question.
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