Brief Anesthetic Exposure in Infancy Does Not Affect Test Scores in Adolescence

Rachel Fields -

Researchers found no evidence that a single, relatively brief anesthetic exposure connected to hernia repair in infancy reduced academic performance during adolescence, according to a report published in Anesthesiology.

The study used Danish birth cohorts from 1986-1990 and compared the academic performance of all children who had undergone inguinal hernia repair in infancy to a randomly selected, age-matched population sample. Primary analysis compared average test scores at ninth grade, adjusting for sex, birth weight and paternal and maternal age and education. The study also compared the proportions of children not attaining test scores between the two groups.

The researchers found nothing suggesting that the anesthetic exposure related to hernia repair reduced academic performance at 15 or 16 years old. However, the higher test score nonattainment rate among the hernia group could suggest that some of those children are developmentally disadvantaged compared with the background population.

Read the report on anesthetic exposure in Anesthesiology.

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