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. 2022 Feb 24;11(5):788.
doi: 10.3390/cells11050788.

Long-Term Subjective and Objective Assessment of Smell and Taste in COVID-19

Andrea Ciofalo  1 , Carlo Cavaliere  1 , Simonetta Masieri  2 , Alessandra Di Chicco  1 , Irene Fatuzzo  1 , Federica Lo Re  1 , Silvia Baroncelli  3 , Elona Begvarfaj  1 , Andrea Adduci  1 , Ivano Mezzaroma  4 , Claudio Maria Mastroianni  5 , Marco de Vincentiis  1 , Antonio Greco  1 , Loris Zamai  6   7 , Marco Artico  1
Affiliations

Long-Term Subjective and Objective Assessment of Smell and Taste in COVID-19

Andrea Ciofalo et al. Cells. .

Abstract

Among the first clinical symptoms of the SARS-CoV-2 infection is olfactory−gustatory deficit; this continues for weeks and, in some cases, can be persistent. We prospectively evaluated 162 patients affected by COVID-19 using a visual analogue scale (VAS) for nasal and olfactory−gustatory symptoms. Patients were checked after 7, 14, 21, 28, 90, and 180 days. A total of 118 patients (72.8%) reported an olfactory VAS < 7 at baseline (group B), and 44 (27.2%) reported anosmia (VAS ≥ 7) (group A) and underwent the Brief Smell Identification Test (B-SIT) and Burghart Taste Strips (BTS) to quantify the deficit objectively and repeated the tests to confirm the sense recovery. Group A patients showed B-SIT anosmia and hyposmia in 44.2% and 55.8% of cases, respectively. A total of 88.6% of group A patients reported ageusia with VAS ≥ 7, and BTS confirmed 81.8% of ageusia and 18.2% of hypogeusia. VAS smell recovery was recorded starting from 14 days, with normalization at 28 days. The 28-day B-SIT score showed normosmia in 90.6% of group A patients. The mean time for full recovery (VAS = 0) was shorter in group B (22.9 days) than in group A (31.9 days). Chemosensory deficit is frequently the first symptom in patients with COVID-19, and, in most cases, recovery occurs after four weeks.

Keywords: B-SIT; COVID-19; smell; taste; taste strips.

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Conflict of interest statement

A.C., S.M., A.D.C., I.F., F.L.R., S.B., E.B., A.A., A.C., I.M., C.M.M., M.d.V., A.G., L.Z. and M.A. declare no conflict of interest. C.C. declares scientific consultancy for GlaxoSmithKline.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Correlation between olfactory and taste VAS scores in 162 patients after COVID-19 diagnosis (time 0). Black circle: group A; gray circle: group B; Spearman test: r = 0.906, p < 0.0001.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Changes over time of the percentage of patients (group A: anosmic; group B: hypo- and normosmic) suffering from different degrees of olfactory dysfunctions. Anosmia (black, VAS > 7), hyposmia (gray, 1 < VAS < 7), and normosmia (dotted, VAS < 1).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Evolution of olfactory dysfunctions in patients of group A (n = 44, VAS ≥ 7, black circle) and group B (n = 118, VAS < 7, gray circle). Each point represents the mean and 95% CI of the VAS score reported by patients during the study. Differences between time points were analyzed using the Wilcoxon test. * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.001.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Changes over time of the percentage of patients (group A: anosmic; group B: hypo- and normosmic) suffering from different degrees of taste dysfunctions and their evolution over time. A: group A; B: group B. Ageusia (black, VAS ≥ 7), hypoageusia (gray, 1 ≤ VAS < 7), and normosmia (dotted, VAS < 1).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Recovery of olfactory and taste functions measured by objective evaluation tests. B-SIT (square) and BTS (circle) scores were obtained during the first 4 weeks from COVID-19 diagnosis in all group A patients. Differences between time points were analyzed using the Wilcoxon test. ** p < 0.001.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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