Open AccessClinical correlation and assessment of olfactory dysfunction with n-butanol in COVID-19 patients: our experience
Author(s) -
Rohit Sharma,
Amit Kumar Rana,
Veerta Sharma,
Anurag Mehrotra,
Hemapriya Jayaranga Babu,
Salil Gupta,
Rekha Singh,
Adish Tyagi,
Neerja Lugani Sethi,
Prakhar Bhatt,
Vishav Yadav,
P. Chopra,
Dhara Upadhyay
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
rhinology online
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2589-5613
DOI - 10.4193/rhinol/21.055
Subject(s) - hyposmia , medicine , olfaction , anosmia , population , sniffing , olfactory system , gastroenterology , covid-19 , disease , infectious disease (medical specialty) , psychiatry , psychology , environmental health , neuroscience , anatomy
Background: Studies showed olfactory disturbances in COVID patients. This has attracted focus of clinicians as an easy clinical screening tool in suspected population. Material and methods: 70 mild and moderate category COVID-19 RT-PCR positive patients, more than 10 years of age were tested on day of admission for olfaction with serial dilution of n-butanol and asked to grade severity of their olfactory dysfunction according to visual analogue score from 1-10. Results: Fatigue 42 (93.33%), sore throat 37 (82.22%), fever 36 (80%) and dyspnea 23 (51.11%) were the most common symptoms in moderate patients. Diabetes, hypertension and allergy were the three prominent risk factors. At time of admission, n-butanol diagnosed 20 patients having olfactory dysfunction compared to 11 by VAS. Patients tend to grade their dysfunction higher on VAS whereas the n-butanol test classified their olfactory dysfunction lower. Viral load and high CRP were not found to be significantly related with olfactory dysfunction. d-Dimer and LDH levels were found statistically associated with higher grading of olfactory dysfunction detected by n-butanol. Conclusion: The majority of cases developed hyposmia before they were admitted to hospital even before they realized that they were having hyposmia as revealed by n-butanol testing. We should go for objective tests of olfaction.