PANDA (Pediatric Anesthesia & NeuroDevelopment Assessment) Study

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the use of anesthetic agents in infants and children have long term adverse effects on neurocognitive development. According to the National Hospital Discharge Survey, around 2.5 million children have surgical procedures requiring anesthesia each year in the US. Recent animal studies have suggested that the exposure of the immature organism to a variety of commonly used anesthetic agents may lead to neurobehavioral functional deficits in vivo and to neuronal apoptosis in vitro. While the relevance of these findings on children exposed to anesthetics remains to be determined, it is clearly critically important to public health that this issue is resolved quickly and clearly. Hypothesis: Exposure to anesthetic agents within the first three years of life will not significantly impair cognitive functions at ages 8 yr, 0 mo to 15 yr, 0 mo.