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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning that repeated or lengthy use of general anesthetic and sedation drugs during surgeries or procedures in children younger than 3 years or in pregnant women during their third trimester may affect the development of children's brains …

EDITOR'S NOTE: These concerns are part of why Expanesthetics is working toward new general anesthetic drugs with novel mechanisms of action.

A recent study published in Pediatrics suggests that children who received anesthesia before the age of 4 had lower IQ scores than a comparator group who did not receive anesthesia. It is important to remember that surgery and anesthesia are safe for kids, but Dr. Andres Loepke and Dr. Andrew Davidson are among those calling for a bigger discussion and understanding of the risks.

The GAS trial, a major global prospective study looking at the risks of current general anesthetics in young children published initial results in the January 2016 edition of The Lancet. SmartTots, the FDA program that led the funding of the trial cautions about reading too much into the preliminary results.

The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery released a report saying roughly a third of deaths worldwide are due to a lack of surgical access. With an estimated 5 billion people who lack access to safe and affordable surgical and anesthesia care and nearly 17 million lives lost due to surgical conditions in 2010, the report recommends a scaling up of the surgical and anesthesia workforce in fifteen years to double what it is today. The report in its entirety can be viewed here.

From zebrafish to monkeys, there is an increasing body of evidence suggesting commonly used general anesthetics are neurotoxic in juvenile animal studies. The translatability of these studies to the human population is still unclear, as currently available studies in young children are not sufficiently robust to either confirm the results seen in animal studies or 'provide assurance of safety.' What is clear is the US FDA is taking active steps to assess and understand the neurotoxic effects of general anesthetics to the developing brain.