Psychophysical Olfactory Tests and Detection of COVID-19 in Patients With Sudden Onset Olfactory Dysfunction: A Prospective Study
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Fecha de publicación
2020Título de revista
ENT-EAR NOSE & THROAT JOURNAL
Tipo de contenido
Journal Article
DeCS
estudios de casos y controles | estimulación física | estudios prospectivos | técnicas de laboratorio clínico | pandemias | reacción en cadena de la polimerasa por transcriptasa inversa | mediana edad | disgeusia | adulto | obstrucción nasal | anciano | neumonía | adulto joven | humanos | trastornos del olfato | infecciones por CoronavirusMeSH
Clinical Laboratory Techniques | Pandemics | Adult | Physical Stimulation | Middle Aged | Humans | Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction | Young Adult | Dysgeusia | Coronavirus Infections | Prospective Studies | Pneumonia | Case-Control Studies | Aged | Olfaction Disorders | Nasal ObstructionResumen
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) status of patients with initial sudden olfactory anosmia (ISOA) through nasopharyngeal swabs for reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis and to explore their olfactory dysfunctions with psychophysical olfactory evaluation. METHODS: A total of 78 ISOA patients were recruited from April 6, 2020, to April 10, 2020, through a public call of University of Mons (Mons, Belgium). Patients benefited from nasopharyngeal swabs and fulfilled the patient-reported outcome questionnaire. Among them, 46 patients performed psychophysical olfactory evaluation using olfactory identification testing. Based on the duration of the ISOA, 2 groups of patients were compared: patients with olfactory dysfunction duration </=12 days (group 1) and those with duration >12 days (group 2). RESULTS: In group 1, 42 patients (87.5%) had a positive viral load determined by RT-PCR and 6 patients (12.5%) were negative. In group 2, 7 patients (23%) had a positive viral load and 23 patients (77%) were negative. The psychophysical olfactory evaluation reported that anosmia and hyposmia occurred in 24 (52%) and 11 (24%) patients, respectively. Eleven patients were normosmic. The viral load was significantly higher in patients of group 1 compared with those of group 2. CONCLUSIONS: Coronavirus disease 2019 was detected in a high proportion of ISOA patients, especially over the first 12 days of olfactory dysfunction. Anosmia is an important symptom to consider in the detection of COVID-19 infection.