The burden of prolonged smell and taste loss in covid-19

[...]smell and taste loss are common complaints among patients with covid-19, with an estimated 50% of patients reporting these symptoms.1 This is thought to occur due to conductive barriers and nerve damage from the extensive inflammation in covid-19 infection.2345 The recovery of smell and taste i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:BMJ (Online) 2022-07, Vol.378, p.o1895-o1895
Main Authors: Kye Wen Tan, Nicole, Jing-Wen, Claire, Tan, Kye Jyn Tan, Benjamin, Han, Ruobing, Zhao, Joseph J, Sen Hui Quah, Emrick, Kelly, Chrissi, Wei Yang Teo, Neville, See, Anna, Toh, Song Tar, Hopkins, Claire
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chemosensory perception
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Infections
Medical prognosis
Mental health
Odor
Olfaction
Opinion
Patients
Perception
Self report
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Smell
Systematic review
Taste
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Summary:[...]smell and taste loss are common complaints among patients with covid-19, with an estimated 50% of patients reporting these symptoms.1 This is thought to occur due to conductive barriers and nerve damage from the extensive inflammation in covid-19 infection.2345 The recovery of smell and taste is very much a gradual process for some. Using a mathematical technique known as cure modelling to project the plateaus of smell and taste recovery across 18 studies, we found that self-reported smell loss may persist in 5.6% of patients, while 4.4% may not recover their self-reported sense of taste (for some this reflects loss of flavour perception, a function of olfaction, while in others it may reflect true gustatory dysfunction).7 With more than 550 million confirmed covid-19 cases as of July 2022, this means that potentially 15 million and 12 million patients may experience long term smell and taste impairments, respectively, based on our modelling. Besides a quantitative impairment in smell, a sizeable proportion of patients also report qualitative smell impairment following covid-19 infection, manifesting as distortion of odour (known as parosmia) or a perception of smell in the absence of an odour (known as phantosmia).8 These patients often struggle to tolerate everyday smells and become increasingly withdrawn. According to one patient, she was not particularly concerned by the smell loss initially because she saw it as something temporary that many patients had to deal with.
ISSN:1756-1833
1756-1833
DOI:10.1136/bmj.o1895