General Anesthesia Causes Attention Deficit Disorder in Children

The children, who undergo a surgery with general anesthesia at the age of under two years, may face a higher risk of developing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

There has been a study at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, involving 5,357 children born between 1976 and 1982. If they experienced at least two surgical interventions before their second birthday, ADHD was twice as likely to be diagnosed until the age of 19, if to compare them with their peers.

The author of the study, David O. Warner, MD, explains that the longer the child is unconscious, the higher the risk of developing ADHD is. However, if the child must have a surgery, the parents still should agree with the doctor. For all that the scientists can say for sure is that they can not exclude the possibility of such problems, but the clear causal relationship has not yet been found.

The concerns about the potential influence of general anesthesia on brain development were first introduced about 10 years ago, when the experiments were carried out on animals. It became clear that after anesthesia they demonstrated changes in brain regions, associated with behavioral problems.