Abstract
Smell and taste disorders are frequent symptoms during acute COVID-19 and may persist long after the resolution of the initial phase. This study aims to estimate the proportion and risk factors for smell and/or taste disorders at the onset of symptoms and their persistence after more than 6 months of follow-up in COVID-19 patients. We analyzed a prospective cohort of COVID-19 patients admitted to our institute in Marseille, France in early 2020. After being discharged from the hospital, patients with smell and/or taste disorders were contacted for a telephone interview. Logistic regression analysis was performed to determine the risk factors for smell and/or taste disorders. A total of 3,737 patients were included, of whom 1,676 reported smell and/or taste disorders at the onset of symptoms. Taste and/or smell disorders were independently associated with being younger and female, a lower likelihood of suffering from diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer, a longer delay between the onset of symptoms and consultation, and non-severe forms of COVID-19 at admission. Of the 605 patients with smell and/or taste disorders who were followed-up, 154 (25.5%) reported the persistence of symptoms for more than 6 months. At the time of follow-up, being female, having a chronic respiratory disease and using angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEis) were factors independently associated with the persistence of smell and/or taste disorders. In conclusion, the long-term persistence of olfactory and gustative disorders is frequent among COVID-19 patients, notably affecting female patients and patients who suffered from chronic respiratory diseases before infection. The role of ACEis needs to be further evaluated in larger numbers of patients.
Highlights
The clinical symptoms of COVID-19 patients vary from being asymptomatic to being fatal, with the involvement of multiple organs [1]
We investigated the risk factors for smell and/or taste disorders during the acute phase and risk factors for the persistence of these symptoms more than 30 weeks following the onset of COVID-19 symptoms
Of the 3,737 COVID-19 patients diagnosed within the first months of 2020, 1,676 reported smell and/or taste disorders during the acute phase of the disease [6]
Summary
The clinical symptoms of COVID-19 patients vary from being asymptomatic to being fatal, with the involvement of multiple organs [1]. Olfactory and gustatory disorders are frequent symptoms reported at an early phase of the disease. In Chinese studies, the frequency of olfactory and gustatory dysfunction ranged, respectively, from 5.1 and 5.6% in one study conducted on 214 patients [2] to 39.5 and 38.4%, in another. One study conducted in the United Kingdom and the United States among patients with respiratory symptoms showed that loss of smell and taste was more frequent in SARS-CoV-2 positive patients than in negative patients, with a rate of 65.03% compared to 21.71% [4]. A crosssectional study conducted on 417 COVID-19 patients who were recruited from 12 European hospitals showed that 85.6 and 88.0% reported smell and taste disorders, respectively [5]. In Marseille, France, 39.2 and 37.8% of 3,737 SARS-CoV-2-infected patients seen between 3 March and 27 April reported smell and taste disorders during the acute phase, respectively [6]
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