Key result
Under one hour of infant general anesthesia yields equivalent age-5 IQ to awake-regional anesthesia.
Why the study?
Preclinical data and human cohort studies showed conflicting findings on whether general anaesthesia in early infancy causes neurodevelopmental deficits, with observational studies being prone to bias.
Does sevoflurane-based general anaesthesia reduce full-scale intelligence quotient at 5 years of age in infants undergoing inguinal herniorrhaphy compared to awake-regional anaesthesia?
RCT (n=722)
Assessor-masked
1:1
Yes
Does sevoflurane-based general anaesthesia reduce full-scale intelligence quotient at 5 years of age in infants undergoing inguinal herniorrhaphy compared to awake-regional anaesthesia?
Effect estimate: Difference in means 0.23 (95% CI -2.59 to 3.06)
Absolute Event Rate: 98.97% vs 99.08%
Slightly less than 1 hour of general anaesthesia in early infancy does not alter neurodevelopmental outcome at age 5 years compared with awake-regional anaesthesia.
Authors
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Short general anaesthesia in infancy poses no IQ risk at age 5; confirms equivalence to awake-regional anaesthesia in this RCT.
McCann et al. (2019) conducted an RCT in Infants undergoing inguinal herniorrhaphy (n=722). Sevoflurane-based general anaesthetic vs. Awake-regional anaesthetic was evaluated on Full-scale intelligence quotient (FSIQ) on the WPPSI-III at 5 years of age (Difference in means 0.23, 95% CI -2.59 to 3.06). Slightly less than 1 hour of general anaesthesia in early infancy was equivalent to awake-regional anaesthesia for full-scale IQ at 5 years of age (difference in means 0.23; 95% CI -2.59 to 3.06).