The importance of intranasal trigeminal event-related potentials test for patients with olfactory dysfunction

Abstract

Objective: To analyze the characteristics of trigeminal event-related potentials (tERPs) in different kinds of olfactory disorders (OD), and to evaluate the importance of tERPs for the patients with olfactory dysfunction. Methods: Clinical data of 314 patients with olfactory dysfunction from the Smell and Taste Clinics in Beijing Anzhen Hospital from 2015 to 2021 were retrospectively reviewed, including 158 males and 156 females, aging from 6 to 78 years. The control group consisted of healthy people from medical examination center, who were gender and age matched. The clinical characteristics of OD were analyzed using Sniffin' Sticks test, olfactory event-related potentials (oERPs), tERPs and acoustic rhinometry test. SPSS 17.0 software was used to compare the difference of tERPs between the two groups, and to analyze the related factors affecting trigeminal function. Results: The ratio of tERPs presence was different in OD caused by different reasons: head traumatic OD (54.9%), post-virus infection OD (63.6%), sinonasal inflammatory OD (68.4%) and OD due to other causes (56.9%). Compared with controls, tERPs signals in OD patients showed a significant lower amplitude in the N1 wave (all P<0.001), and lower amplitude in the P2 wave in most OD patients (head trauma t=-4.11, P<0.001; sinonasal inflammation t=-2.04, P=0.046; others t=-2.40, P=0.020) except in OD by post-virus infection (t=-1.98, P=0.052). tERPs signals in OD patients by sinonasal inflammation showed longer latency in the N1 wave (t=2.15, P=0.036), but this difference was not observed in other OD patients (all P>0.05). tERPs signals were significantly correlated with the Sniffin' Sticks score, deficiency of oERPs and nasal minimum cross-sectional area (all P<0.05). Conclusions: OD patients show neurophysiologic deficits in trigeminal function. The absence of tERPs or lower amplitude in N1 waves are the important characteristics of patients with OD.