Sanford EL, et al. - Since pediatric surgical epidemiology has been geographically defined without evaluation of trends over time, thus, researchers evaluated trends in surgical exposure among children younger than 3 years through a comprehensive national database. In animals exposed to anesthetics, preclinical data illustrating neuroapoptosis and human data recognizing a correlation between anesthesia and learning deficiencies resulted in the 2016 US Food and Drug Administration alerting that recurred or long anesthetic exposure in children younger than 3 years may influence brain development. Current prospective studies illustrated no impairment from short anesthetic exposure in infants. In young children, most anesthetic exposures are under 2 hours. Irrespective of these reassuring findings, concerns about neurocognitive impairment may influence parents and physicians to comply with anesthetic exposure and, therefore, surgery.