Smell and Taste Loss Recovery Time in COVID-19 Patients and Disease Severity

Abstract

A significant proportion of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 report a new onset of smell or taste loss. The duration of the chemosensory impairment and predictive factors of recovery are still unclear. We aimed to investigate the prevalence, temporal course and recovery predictors in patients who suffered from varying disease severity. Consecutive adult patients diagnosed to be infected with SARS-CoV-2 via reverse-transcription–polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) at two coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) Reference Hospitals were contacted to complete a survey reporting chemosensory loss, severity, timing and duration, nasal symptoms, smoking, allergic rhinitis, chronic rhinosinusitis, comorbidities and COVID-19 severity. In a cross-sectional study, we contacted 182 patients and 150 responded. Excluding the critically ill patients, 38% reported gustatory and 41% olfactory impairment (74% severe/anosmia). Most of the patients (88%) recovered their sense of smell by two months (median: 11.5 days; IQR: 13.3). For 23%, the olfactory loss lasted longer than a month. There were no significant differences in the prevalence and duration of chemosensory loss between groups of varying COVID-19 severity, and sexes (all p > 0.05). Moderate hyposmia resolved quicker than more severe loss (p = 0.04). Smell and taste loss are highly prevalent in COVID-19. Most patients recover fast, but nearly one out of ten have not recovered in two months.

Differential olfactory outcomes in COVID‐19: A large healthcare system population study

“…This provides further support of recently published findings that olfactory loss severity is a predictor of long‐term recovery. 7 , 8 This may be important when counseling patients on expectations of long‐term olfactory recovery. Additionally, on regression analysis, we discovered that lower BMI and shortness of breath on presentation were significantly associated with prolonged duration of hyposmia (Table S1 ), while male gender, presence of sore throat, GI symptoms, history of prior smell/taste disturbances, and absence of fever were statistically significant predictors of reporting moderate to severe hyposmia (Table S2 ).…”

Olfactory Disorders in Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome

“…Accumulating evidence indicates that altered smell is one of the most prevalent symptoms in acute COVID-19 infection [11]. In self-report studies, the estimated prevalence of olfactory disorders in acute COVID-19 ranged from 5% to 85%, depending on disease severity, and seems to be higher than in other respiratory viral infections.…”

Is loss of smell an early predictor of COVID-19 severity: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…In total, 34 studies provided information on the severity of COVID-19 disease. Of them, four studies were preprints (Al Harthi et al 2020;Bertlich et al 2020;Papizadeh et al 2020;Patel et al 2020), and 30 articles were published studies (Aggarwal et al 2020;Alasia et al 2021;Alizadehsani et al 2021;Allenbach et al 2020;Amanat et al 2021;Borobia et al 2020;Delorme et al 2021;Elimian et al 2020;Ermis et al 2021;García-Azorín et al 2021;Ghaffari et al 2021;Goyal et al 2021;Izquierdo et al 2020;Kadiane-Oussou et al 2020;Kocayığıt et al 2021;Lechien et al 2021;Liotta et al 2020;Mao et al 2020;McElvaney et al 2020;Muñoz-Rodríguez et al 2021;Printza et al 2021;Romero-Sánchez et al 2020;Salepci et al 2021;Sobhani et al 20212021;Song et al 2021;Studart-Neto et al 2020;Sun et al 2021;Tomlins et al 2020;Vaira et al 2020;Vial et al 2020). The OD were present in 482 severely ill and 2640 non-severely ill patients with COVID-19.…”