SIB 456: COVID- Loss of Smell Rarely Permanent
The Study: Clinical Outcomes for Patients With Anosmia 1 Year After COVID-19 Diagnosis
Overview: The study followed a cohort of 97 COVID patients with acute loss of smell for one year.
Key Points:
Ninety seven patients with confirmed COVID-19 infection and experiencing a loss of smell for seven days or longer were included in the original cohort.
“Of these patients, 51 (52.6%) underwent both subjective and objective olfactory testing, and 46 (47.4%) underwent subjective assessment alone.”
When patients were reassessed at 4 months, 45 percent reported full recovery, 27 percent reported only partial recovery and 1 patient reported no improvement.
However, 84 percent of the above group tested normal upon psychophysical testing including 19 who had self evaluated as being only partially improved.
By 8 months 96 percent were fully recovered according to the objective testing measures used.
Only two patients reported persistent problems by the end of the study one year later. One of these patients showed an abnormal olfactory threshold and the other continued to have problems with misidentification of various smells.
Author’s Conclusions: “More than 1 year into the pandemic, we describe the long-term prognosis for a cohort of patients with COVID-19–related anosmia, most of whom (96.1%) objectively recovered by 12 months.” “We also confirmed that discrepancies exist between self-assessed and objective testing, whereby participants tend to underappreciate the return of normosmia”.
Reviewer's Comments: Permanent loss of smell appears to be quite rare even though patients may not fully appreciate the degree to which their sense of smell has actually returned. Clinicians can now encourage their patients with some degree of certainty that loss of smell (anosmia) is likely to be self resolving within one year.
*Added and emphasis and parenthesis seen above are ours.
Reviewer: Mark R. Payne DC
Reference: Marion Renaud, MD1; Claire Thibault, MD1; Floriane Le Normand, MD1; et al. Clinical Outcomes for Patients With Anosmia 1 Year After COVID-19 Diagnosis. JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4(6):e2115352. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.15352
Link to Full Text: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2781319