Researchers say so far brief dose of gas does not seem to affect small children Study testing kids and anaesthetic
Babies who receive “one brief dose” of general anaesthesia are unlikely to suffer brain damage at the age of 5 — but the outcome of longer exposure remains unclear.
Auckland paediatric anaesthetist Dr Niall Wilton said concern has been growing over the past 30 years involving the use of general anaesthesia with babies and the effect on their developing brains.
In order to test this theory, which stemmed from multiple animal studies, Wilton has been involved with a groundbreaking worldwide study tracking the mental capacity of 360 children who underwent hernia repair surgery as babies.
They were compared with another 360 children who had not been exposed to general anaesthesia.
“The study showed absolutely no difference between the groups,” Wilton told the Herald.
Children were given a psychological and IQ test at the age of 2 and again when they turned 5, he said.
“For these children who had been exposed to less than an hour of general anaesthesia there was no increased problem in the primary outcome which was intelligence, or the behavioural development.”
An IQ test at the age of 5 was a good indicator of how people behave later in life, Wilton said.
“So if you do okay in the 5-yearold test then the chances are you will do okay when you’re older. Likewise, if you are having behavioural problems at the age of 5 then that is likely to progress later on,” he said.
The study involved researchers and doctors from 28 hospitals across Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada and Europe who tracked babies who had the surgery in February 2007 until they turned 5 in January 2013.
In Auckland, 25 babies who had hernia repair surgery at Starship children’s hospital took part in the study.
Wilton said these latest findings are the strongest evidence to date that one-hour exposures to general anaesthesia is safe in young children.
However, he said the impact of general anaesthesia on children who had been exposed to anaesthetic drugs for longer than one hour was still unknown .
Young Jai Costello, however, has been in surgery scores of times — but he seems untroubled by the experience.
The 9-year-old has had nearly 100 operations yet his mum says he’s top of his class.
The Tauranga boy suffers from laryngeal papilloma, a growth on his airway.
For these children who had been exposed to less than an hour of general anaesthesia there was no increased problem in the primary outcome.
Dr Niall Wilton paediatric anaesthetist
The growth was discovered after Jai was rushed to Starship when he was only 20 months old with breathing problems that had worsened since his birth.
“His airway was so blocked he was breathing through [a gap] the size of a needlepoint,” his mum Kayla Mackenzie said.
It’s pretty incredible.”
If the growth hadn’t been cut back, within a few weeks Jai would have stopped breathing, Mackenzie said.
He now has surgery every month to six weeks to trim the growth.
But despite it all, Mackenzie says he is “thriving at school”.
“His school report is always amazing. He’s top of the class at maths and does a couple of years above.
“I don’t think his surgeries have impacted his learning or behavioural development at all. In fact he hates it when we pull him out of school,” Mackenzie said.
She describes her “resilient boy” as having the ability to “just get on with it”.