Clinical correlation and assessment of olfactory dysfunction with n-butanol in COVID-19 patients: our experience

Abstract

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.

Untitled

“…The COVID-19 positive individuals answered to the queries and it was identified that most of them had the clinical manifestations of fever (74.13%), sore throat/dry cough (65.51%), nasal stuffiness or rhinorrhoea (60.34%) and myalgia/fatigue (53.44%) and GI symptoms (34.38%). The various systematic reviews and meta-analysis and other studies have also reported the common occurrence of fever, cough, fatigue & rhinorrhoea/ nasal stuffiness as the common symptoms in COVID-19 infected patients [17][18][19][20]. On the other hand, all the COVID-19 negative individuals also had a history of fever and a considerable group had dry cough/sore throat and few had a history of myalgia only.…”

The Retrospective Pilot Study of the Prevalence of Olfactory Dysfunction or Loss of Smell, Loss of Taste and Oral Manifestations among COVID-19 Positive Health Workers in Muscat, Oman

“…The COVID-19 positive individuals answered to the queries and it was identified that most of them had the clinical manifestations of fever (74.13%), sore throat/dry cough (65.51%), nasal stuffiness or rhinorrhoea (60.34%) and myalgia/fatigue (53.44%) and GI symptoms (34.38%). The various systematic reviews and meta-analysis and other studies have also reported the common occurrence of fever, cough, fatigue & rhinorrhoea/ nasal stuffiness as the common symptoms in COVID-19 infected patients [17][18][19][20]. On the other hand, all the COVID-19 negative individuals also had a history of fever and a considerable group had dry cough/sore throat and few had a history of myalgia only.…”

The Retrospective Pilot Study of the Prevalence of Olfactory Dysfunction or Loss of Smell, Loss of Taste and Oral Manifestations Among COVID-19 Positive Health Workers in Muscat, Oman

“…The various systematic reviews and meta-analysis and other studies have also reported the common occurrence of fever, cough, fatigue & rhinorrhoea/nasal stuffiness as the common symptoms in COVID-19 infected patients. [ 17 – 20 ]. On the other hand, all the COVID-19 negative individuals also had a history of fever and a considerable group had dry cough/sore throat and few had a history of myalgia only.…”