Kids’ General Anesthesia Linked to Behavioral Disorders

If studies on mice carry forward with the same effects on human children, administering a general anesthesia to a child younger than three may jeopardize his or her neurological development and increase the risk of developing behavioral disorders.  Researchers at Columbia University used that theory as the basis for a study of more than 5,000 children and their report suggests the link is real and that children undergoing general anesthesia before their third birthday were twice as likely to develop behavioral and developmental issues than children of the same age who were never fully anesthetized. Read more

Anesthesia May Increase Post-Surgical Pain

The June 23 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) carries the paradoxical findings of a report on the effects of certain general anesthesia drugs, including how they decrease feelings of pain during surgery but cause pain afterward. A research team from Georgetown University Medical Center conducted the study, funded by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the National Institutes of Health. Read more