Olfactory taste disorder as a presenting symptom of COVID-19: a large single-center Singapore study.

xlomafota13 shared this article with you from Inoreader Olfactory taste disorder as a presenting symptom of COVID-19: a large single-center Singapore study. Via http://link.springer.com/journal/405,European archives of oto-rhino-laryngology,The European Federation of Oto-Rhino-Laryngological Societies (EUFOS) : affiliated with the German Society for Oto-Rhino Related Articles Olfactory taste disorder as a presenting symptom of COVID-19: a large single-center Singapore study. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol. 2020 Nov 07;: Authors: Tham AC, Thein TL, Lee CS, Tan GSE, Manauis CM, Siow JK, Leo YS, Lim MY Abstract PURPOSE: To investigate the prevalence and epidemiological risk factors of olfactory and/or taste disorder (OTD), in particular isolated OTD, in patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infection. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective and cross-sectional study. Patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infection were recruited from the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) Singapore between 24 March 2020 and 16 April 2020. The electronic health records of these patients were accessed, and demographic data and symptoms reported (respiratory, self-reported OTD and other symptoms such as headache, myalgia and lethargy) were collected. RESULTS: A total of 1065 patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 were recruited. Overall, the prevalence of OTD was 12.6%. Twelve patients (1.1%) had isolated OTD. The top three symptoms associated with OTD were cough, fever and sore throat. The symptoms of runny nose and blocked nose were experienced by only 29.8 and 19.3% of patients, respectively. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that the female gender, presence of blocked nose and absence of fever were significantly associated with OTD (adjusted relative risks 1.77, 3.31, 0.42, respectively). All these factors were statistically significant. CONCLUSION: Patients with COVID-19 infection can present with OTD, either in isolation or in combination with other general symptoms. Certain demographic profile, such as being female, and symptomatology such as the presence of blocked nose and absence of fever, were more likely to have OTD when infected by COVID-19. Further studies to elucidate the pathophysiology of OTD in these patients will be beneficial. PMID: 33159556 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] View on the web Inoreader. Take back control of your news feed. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.