Although exposure to surgery/anesthesia is associated with a small cognitive decline among the elderly, there is no impact from the presence or absence of nitrous oxide.

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• Juraj Sprung, Arnoley S Arney Abcejo, David S Knopman, Ronald C Petersen, Michelle M Mielke, Andrew C Hanson, Darrell R Schroeder, Phillip J Schulte, David P Martin, Toby N Weingarten, Jeffrey J Pasternak, and David O Warner.
• From the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine.
• Anesth. Analg. 2020 Aug 1; 131 (2): 594604594-604.

BackgroundWe evaluated the hypothesis that the rate of postoperative decline in global cognition is greater in older adults exposed to general anesthesia with nitrous oxide (N2O) compared to general anesthesia without N2O.MethodsLongitudinal measures of cognitive function were analyzed in nondemented adults, 70-91 years of age, enrolled in the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging. Linear mixed-effects models with time-varying covariates assessed the relationship between exposure to surgery with general anesthesia (surgery/GA) with or without N2O and the rate of long-term cognitive changes. Global cognition and domain-specific cognitive outcomes were defined using z scores, which measure how far an observation is, in standard deviations, from the unimpaired population mean.ResultsThe analysis included 1819 participants: 280 exposed to GA without N2O following enrollment and before censoring during follow-up (median [interquartile range {IQR}] follow-up of 5.4 [3.9-7.9] years); 256 exposed to GA with N2O (follow-up 5.6 [4.0-7.9] years); and 1283 not exposed to surgery/GA (follow-up 4.1 [2.5-6.4] years). The slope of the global cognitive z score was significantly more negative following exposure to surgery/GA after enrollment (change in slope of -0.062 [95% confidence interval {CI}, -0.085 to -0.039] for GA without N2O, and -0.058 [95% CI, -0.080 to -0.035] for GA with N2O, both P < .001). The change in slope following exposure to surgery/GA did not differ between those exposed to anesthesia without versus with N2O (estimated difference -0.004 [95% CI, -0.035 to 0.026], P = .783).ConclusionsExposure to surgery/GA is associated with a small, but statistically significant decline in cognitive z scores. Cognitive decline did not differ between anesthetics with and without N2O. This finding provides evidence that the use of N2O in older adults does not need to be avoided because of concerns related to decline in cognition.

This article appears in the collection: Does anesthesia cause post-operative delirium and post-operative cognitive decline?.

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