Assessing the extent and timing of chemosensory impairments during COVID-19 pandemic

  1. Cinzia Cecchetto
  2. Antonella Di Pizio
  3. Federica Genovese
  4. Orietta Calcinoni
  5. Alberto Macchi
  6. Andreas Dunkel
  7. Kathrin Ohla
  8. Sara Spinelli
  9. Michael C. Farruggia
  10. Paule V. Joseph
  11. Anna Menini
  12. Elena Cantone
  13. Caterina Dinnella
  14. Maria Paola Cecchini
  15. Anna D’Errico
  16. Carla Mucignat-Caretta
  17. Valentina Parma
  18. Michele Dibattista

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Abstract

Chemosensory impairments have been established as a specific indicator of COVID-19. They affect most patients and may persist long past the resolution of respiratory symptoms, representing an unprecedented medical challenge. Since the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic started, we now know much more about smell, taste, and chemesthesis loss associated with COVID-19. However, the temporal dynamics and characteristics of recovery are still unknown. Here, capitalizing on data from the Global Consortium for Chemosensory Research (GCCR) crowdsourced survey, we assessed chemosensory abilities after the resolution of respiratory symptoms in participants diagnosed with COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic in Italy. This analysis led to the identification of two patterns of chemosensory recovery, partial and substantial, which were found to be associated with differential age, degrees of chemosensory loss, and regional patterns. Uncovering the self-reported phenomenology of recovery from smell, taste, and chemesthetic disorders is the first, yet essential step, to provide healthcare professionals with the tools to take purposeful and targeted action to address chemosensory disorders and their severe discomfort.

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  1. Version published to 10.1038/s41598-021-96987-0
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.03.25.21254253: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Despite some limitations24,57, the analysis of self-reports of patients’ chemosensory abilities is to date the most effective strategy to target the largest number of patients that could not be otherwise reached because of the safety policies implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the lack of widespread routine chemosensory testing. Current standardized evaluations of smell and taste for clinical purposes require lengthy and maskless testing sessions, thus making this practice unsafe63,64. Additionally, even if this practice would be safe, it is not common knowledge among first-line healthcare professionals. Therefore, in order to recognize early during the disease and characterize over time these extremely common long-term consequences of COVID-19, it is of paramount importance to add to the first patients’ assessment a set of well-framed informed questions on smell and taste loss and recovery. A direct comparison of the objective and subjective chemosensory assessment showed that subjective methods (self-reports) might underestimate chemosensory loss in COVID-19 patients1, nevertheless, self-reports can provide a first-aid tool to estimate chemosensory loss among the population, with a significant impact on the patients’ care and quality of life. A first indication emerging from our analysis is that asking the patient to rate their smell, taste, and ability to perceive chemical irritation (chemesthesis) on a 0-100 visual analog scale (VAS) before, during, and ...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.03.25.21254253v1 on medRxiv