Abstract
BackgroundTo evaluate the prevalence of olfactory dysfunction (OD) in the Indian population and to establish olfactory dysfunction as a screening tool in COVID-19-positive patients. Data was collected using a questionnaire from laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 patients. The patient’s demographic and clinical details were analyzed to calculate the prevalence of olfactory dysfunction, general symptoms like fever, cough, malaise, diarrhea, along with the sinonasal symptoms. All the symptoms were self-reported, and no objective tests were carried out.ResultsOut of 646 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection, olfactory dysfunction was self-reported by 465 (72%) patients and gustatory dysfunction (GD) was seen in 406 (62.8%) patients. The affected males (416) were proportionately more than females (230), with the mean age of our study population being 39.47 ± 13.85 (range 18–85 years). The most common symptoms were myalgia (n = 494, 76.5%), cough (n = 471, 72.9%), and fever (n = 444, 68.7%). Out of 465 patients with olfactory dysfunction, only 108 (23.2%) reported nasal obstruction. Five hundred thirty-three (82.5%) RT-PCR-positive patients did not give a history of smoking; however, co-morbidity was reported by 163 patients, of which 117 were found to have olfactory dysfunction. One hundred seventy (26.3%) patients gave a positive contact history.13.6% reported olfactory dysfunction as their first symptom. A positive association was seen between olfactory dysfunction and gustatory dysfunctionConclusionsOur study demonstrates a high prevalence of 72% in the Indian population. We recommend that anosmia be used as a screening tool to identify mild to moderate cases of COVID-19.
Highlights
To evaluate the prevalence of olfactory dysfunction (OD) in the Indian population and to establish olfactory dysfunction as a screening tool in COVID-19-positive patients
We recommend that anosmia be used as a screening tool to identify mild to moderate cases of COVID-19
Our study aims to evaluate the prevalence of olfactory dysfunction (OD) in lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 presenting to our hospital and establish OD as a screening tool to identify COVID-19 cases early
Summary
To evaluate the prevalence of olfactory dysfunction (OD) in the Indian population and to establish olfactory dysfunction as a screening tool in COVID-19-positive patients. The causal agent identified as novel severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV-2), was first reported. The initial presenting symptoms are fever, dry cough, dyspnea, and in severe cases, acute respiratory distress syndrome [1, 4]. Real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) technique and chest. Harit et al The Egyptian Journal of Otolaryngology (2021) 37:126 computed tomography (CT) are the standard diagnostic techniques [5, 6]. The other frequently reported manifestations of COVID-19 are anosmia/hyposmia, dysgeusia, diarrhea, headache, and myalgia [4]. The first notable Asian literature evaluating chemosensory dysfunction in COVID-19 patients did not report a substantial prevalence of hyposmia/anosmia in the Chinese population [7]. Lechein et al reported a prevalence of 85.6% among their study population in their sizeable multicenter trial [8]
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