Few studies have focused on the consequence of exposure to general anesthesia (GA) in children's early life with the risk of asthma and disease outcomes. The present study examines the correlation between exposure to GA under three years old and the subsequent course of asthma in a nationwide population-based cohort study. Our cases were acquired from Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD). Children under three years old with either GA exposure or not during in-patient treatment from 1997 to 2008 were included. The study group was age- and sex-matched with a ratio of 1:2 to create the control group for comparison. The cohort included 2261 cases with GA and 4522 cases without GA as a control group. The incidence of asthma onset was significantly reduced in patients with GA exposure under 3 three years old (hazard ratio 0.64 (95% confidence interval 0.57~0.72), p < 0.001). In addition, regardless of whether the asthmatic clinical visits were before or after GA exposure, asthma onset patients before GA exposure have significantly fewer clinical visits than those without GA exposure (both p < 0.001, respectively). Using the Kaplan-Meier method, we also demonstrated that GA exposure was associated with favorable clinical visits in patients with asthma, whether their asthma was onset before GA (p = 0.0102) or after GA exposure (p = 0.0418) compared to non-GA-exposed controls. In the present study, we demonstrated that children with early GA exposure under three years old were at a reduced risk of developing asthma compared to the general population. Furthermore, we first reported that GA exposure significantly reduced clinical visits in patients with asthma regardless of whether their asthma onset was before or after GA exposure. It is indicated that GA exposure at a younger age could have potential clinical benefits for asthma than non-GA-exposed controls.
Keywords: asthma; general anesthesia; incidence; outcome.