Abstract:

Objective： It has been demonstrated that anesthetics exposure may lead to neurocognitive impairment in developing brain of animal models. However, for the limitation that the animal models cannot fully mimic the dose and duration in clinical settings especially for dental general anesthesia, the cli-nical significance of anesthetics exposure on developing central nervous system remains undetermined. Therefore, we conducted the current study in order to observe the fluctuation of intelligence quotient (IQ) after the administration of dental general anesthesia comparing to that before surgery. We conducted the current study in order to observe the fluctuation of intelligence quotient (IQ) after the administration of dental general anesthesia compared with that before surgery. Methods: Thirty two patients, ASA Ⅰ, who were exposed to dental general anesthesia in Department of Pediatric Dentistry Peking University School and Hospital of Stomatology, aged 4 to 6.5 years, were enrolled in this prospective study. Patients with severe learning difficulties or communication disorders were excluded. Written and informed consent was obtained from each patients’ family which was fully explained of the purpose and method of study. Their intelligence quotients were evaluated with the Chinese Wechsler young children scale of intelligence (Urban version) before and 2 weeks after dental anesthesia. They were treated by experienced pediatric dentists and the sevoflurane, propofol and nitrous oxide were used for general anesthesia by anesthetist. Articaine hydrochloride and epinephrine tartrate injections were used for their pulp treatment or extraction. The examiners and scorers for IQ had technical training in the test administration. All the patients were tested by the same examiner and with standardized guide language.  Each subtest was scored accor-ding to the tool review. Verbal IQ and performance IQ consisted of relevant 5 subtests and full scale IQ. Statistical analyses were performed by SPSS 18.0. All the scores of subtests and 3 types of IQ were expressed as ±s. Paired two-tailed t test was applied and P<0.05 was accepted as statistically significant.  Results: The results of intelligent assessment from 28 subjects were collected. The anesthetic time was (163.4±32.6) min and the number of treated teeth was 12.1±2.3, mean age (4.60±0.41) years; age range=4.04 to 5.44 years. Among the patients, there were 13 girls and 15 boys. There was no significant difference in gender distribution. The postoperative full IQ (128.46±10.85) was higher than that before surgery (124.64±11.46, P= 0.017). We found that the elevation of performance IQ, to a large extent, contributed to this change in full IQ (P= 0.007). Correspondingly, there was no statistical difference in the verbal IQ, which was 119.68±11.74 to 120.21±15.61 (P= 0.854).  Conclusion: Dental general anesthesia has no negative effect on the intelligence of preschool children, who were treated under general anesthesia by sevoflurane, propofol and nitrous oxide for 2 to 4 hours. The full IQ and performance IQ were slightly enhanced after treatment which can be explained by the memory effect.

Key words: Anesthesia, general, Pediatric dentistry, Wechsler scales