Journalists: For links to video and audio files, see the bottom of this post.
Mayo Clinic researchers have found that multiple exposures to anesthesia at a young age are associated with higher rates of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Children exposed to two or more anesthetics before age 3 had more than double the incidence of ADHD than children who had no exposure, says David Warner, M.D., a Mayo Clinic pediatric anesthesiologist and investigator on the study. The findings are published in the Feb. 2 edition of Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
The study utilized results of an existing epidemiological study that looked at educational records of children born between 1976 and 1982 in Rochester, Minn., and determined those who developed some form of learning disability or ADHD.
Among 341 cases of ADHD in those younger than 19, researchers traced medical records in the Rochester Epidemiology Project, a decades-long database of all patient care in Olmsted County, Minn., looking for exposure to anesthesia and surgery before age 3.
Children who had no exposure to anesthesia and surgery had ADHD at a rate of 7.3 percent. The rate after a single exposure to anesthesia and surgery was approximately the same. For children who had two or more exposures to anesthesia and surgery, the rate of ADHD was 17.9 percent, even after researchers adjusted for other factors, including gestational age, sex, birth weight and comorbid health conditions.
The results of the study, however, do not definitively mean that anesthesia causes ADHD, Dr. Warner says.
“This is an observational study,” he says. “A wide range of other factors might be responsible for the higher frequency of ADHD in children with multiple exposures.
The findings certainly do suggest that further investigation into this area is warranted, and investigators at Mayo Clinic and elsewhere are actively pursuing these studies.”
For more information, a copy of the study or to schedule an interview with one of the investigators, contact newsbureau@mayoclinic.edu or call 507-284-5005.
Click here to view the news release.
Journalists: The following video and audio clips with Dr. Warner are available for download and use in your stories.
Below is a link to an edited youtube video with Dr. Warner that you can embed with your stories.
When I read this article I was NOT surprised … saddened, but not surprised.
In 1990 I had just given birth to a healthy 7 lb. boy. After much research and contemplation, we opted not to have him circumcised at birth. After all, we didn’t need to do it for religious reasons and our pediatrician recommended not having it done because, “we are much cleaner today than in years past.”
A few months later we switched pediatricians and he was mortified that we didn’t have our boy circumcised. So, at 3 months, he went under anesthesia and had it done. I felt so uneasy about the whole thing at the time but like most moms, listened to our doc … such a tiny, little person being “knocked out.” There were no complications so we took him home and the rest is history!
It was one challenge after another beginning at the age of 4. I read every book I could get my hands on for ADHD and learned a lot but he had two little sisters that needed me too. As a teenager he had every classic ADHD “symptom” (except fighting, thankfully!). Drugs, theft, alcohol, etc. We had to put him in boarding school at 16 just to get him through school. He’s now 21, wandering the country aimlessly … without goals or even a peek into what he could be. Like other ADHD people, he’s brilliant, he just can’t “get calm” enough to get a lifeplan of any sort. He literally lives minute by minute.
Even before this report was published, I knew in my heart it was a GOOD probability that the anesthesia was the cause.
Thank you for your work – press on!
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Academic difficulties are also frequent. The symptoms are especially difficult to define because it is hard to draw a line at where normal levels of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity end and clinically significant levels requiring intervention begin. To be diagnosed with ADHD, symptoms must be observed in two different settings for six months or more and to a degree that is greater than other children of the same age.