Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Oct;125(5):1165-1171.
doi: 10.1007/s13760-025-02741-y. Epub 2025 Feb 10.

Olfactory function in Wilson's disease-systematic literature review

Jan Paweł Bembenek  1   2 , Tomasz Litwin  3 , Agnieszka Piechal  3   4 , Anna Członkowska  3 , Agnieszka Antos  3 , Adam Przybyłkowski  5
Affiliations

Olfactory function in Wilson's disease-systematic literature review

Jan Paweł Bembenek et al. Acta Neurol Belg. 2025 Oct.

Abstract

In Wilson's disease (WD) improper copper metabolism results in copper accumulation in various organs, mainly brain and liver. The sense of smell is today one of the focuses of interest in aging and neurodegenerative diseases research. However, in WD olfactory function (OF) is still poorly investigated. Our aim was to perform a systematic review of the studies evaluating OF in WD. We searched PubMed for original papers evaluating olfactory function in WD and retrieved five articles. Additionally, one article was identified while viewing the references lists of the included studies. Finally, we included 6 studies. The number of patients ranged from 12 to 68 (altogether 222 WD patients) and their clinical characteristics were variable. Differences in methodology (mainly various tests used for OF evaluation) made it impossible to meta-analyze the data. OF was worse in WD than in controls in all studies. In 3 studies OF was impaired significantly in neurologic phenotype vs hepatic, which was not confirmed in 2 other studies. Correlation between OF and presence of brain lesions in magnetic resonance imaging was inconsistent across two studies. Only one study assessed brain regions involved in the olfactory tract by evaluating olfactory bulb volume. There was no effect of WD treatment, including its type and duration on OF (4 studies). One study additionally assessed taste which was preserved in WD. Although OF was found to be abnormal in WD, this area remains insufficiently explored. Further studies conducted on larger cohorts, with a focus on olfactory tract damage, is essential.

Keywords: Olfactory function; Smell; Systematic review; Wilson’s disease.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Conflict of interest: The authors declare no competing interests. Consent for publication: This manuscript has been approved for publication by all authors. Human and animal rights: This article is based on previously conducted studies and does not contain any new studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors. As this is systematic review of the literature it does not require approval of ethical committee.

References

    1. Marin C, Vilas D, Langdon C, Alobid I, López-Chacón M, Haehner A, Hummel T, Mullol J (2018) Olfactory Dysfunction in Neurodegenerative Diseases. Curr Allergy Asthma Rep 15;18(8):42. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11882-018-0796-4
    1. Doty RL (2017) Olfactory dysfunction in neurodegenerative diseases: is there a common pathological substrate? Lancet Neurol 16(6):478–488. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-4422(17)30123-0 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Murphy C (2019) Olfactory and other sensory impairments in Alzheimer disease. Nat Rev Neurol 15(1):11–24. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41582-018-0097-5 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Viguera C, Wang J, Mosmiller E, Cerezo A, Maragakis NJ (2018) Olfactory dysfunction in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Ann Clin Transl Neurol 5(8):976–981. https://doi.org/10.1002/acn3.594 - DOI - PubMed - PMC
    1. Doty RL (2012) Olfactory dysfunction in Parkinson disease. Nat Rev Neurol 8(6):329–339. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneurol.2012.80 - DOI - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources