Complications of general anesthesia in infants has been a popular topic of discussion in our journal and others over the past few years, but less has been said about adverse events (if any) from sedation/anesthesia performed for diagnostic and therapeutic procedures outside of the operating room.That is until this week when we share the results of a prospective observational study involving more than 57,000 children from birth to 22 years of age who received sedation anesthesia and were then entered in the national Pediatric Sedation Research Consortium—which contains a registry of adverse events that occurred during those procedures.
Havidich et al. (10.1542/peds.2015-0463) separated patients into those born term and preterm and then followed them for adverse events that occurred during a variety of procedures requiring sedation. The results show that former preterm infants run twice the risk of having an adverse event from their sedation. Just what these events were forms the crux of this study and makes for an interesting discussion of the findings such as why they might happen especially in older patients who are years past being born preterm.
This study demonstrates what one can learn from a research registry—and to add to its import, anesthesiologist Dr. Ronald Litman adds a commentary (10.1542/peds.2015-4579) on how registries like this one shed light on the potential for adverse events that might be prevented as a result of findings such as those reported in this article. You’ll find it painless to read this study and commentary—and your patients born preterm who need a procedure will benefit even more.
