Acute nasal dryness in COVID-19

  1. Jordi Navarra
  2. Alba Ruiz-Ceamanos
  3. Juan José Moreno
  4. José María García-Basterrechea
  5. Josep de Haro-Licer
  6. Scott Sinnett
  7. Charles Spence
  8. David Gallardo-Pujol

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Abstract

One of the entry routes of SARS-CoV-2 is the nasal epithelium. Although mounting evidence suggests the presence of olfactory dysfunction, and even anosmia, in patients with COVID-19, it is not clear whether these patients also suffer from other “nasal” symptoms that may influence their olfaction. A group of 35 patients with COVID-19 (and a control group matched in gender and age) were surveyed about the presence of a variety of nasal symptoms that may be associated to drastic perturbations experienced in the nasal cavity (e.g., “excessive dryness” and/or a continual sensation of having had a “nasal douche”). We used a cross-sectional, retrospective survey, targeted at the general population by means of non-quoted, non-random, snowball sampling. Symptoms were assessed with absence/presence responses. The possible association between two continuously distributed latent variables from categorical variables was estimated by means of polychoric correlations. More than 68% of the patients reported at least one “nasal” symptom. The clinical group also experienced “a strange sensation in the nose” and having excessive nasal dryness significantly more often than the control group. Fifty-two percent of the patients (but only 3% of the control group) reported a constant sensation of having had a strong nasal douche. Nasal symptoms predominantly co-occurred with anosmia/hyposmia, and ageusia/hypogeusia, appeared principally before or during the other symptoms of COVID-19, and lasted for twelve days, in average. The presence of these nasal symptoms, and their early occurrence, could potentially facilitate early diagnosis of COVID-19 and initial social distancing efforts.

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  1. Version published to 10.1101/2020.11.18.20233874v2 on medRxiv
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.11.18.20233874: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: Written informed consent was obtained prior to participation in the survey.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variableBecause these initial groups differed in terms of age (p<.001) and smoking habits (p<.01), only responses from a sub-sample of 35 healthy volunteers (based on the following formula: Group∼Gender+Age+Smoking) were used for statistical analyses, ensuring that participants were matched in terms of age (clinical group’s median age=47 years, IQR=38.5-53.5; control group’s median age=46 years, IQR=38.5-53.5), and gender (24 vs. 19 female, respectively; see Table 1 for basic demographic information).

    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:
    A possible limitation of the present study is the possibility of having false COVID-19 negative participants in the control group. It is worth mentioning that any study that tests only for patients might result in a false-negative proportion, but given the seroprevalence in the Spanish population (5%) at the time of this study, this might imply the addition of roughly 8-9 more participants with positive result in PCR test in our full sample, or 1-2 in the subsample, which would not alter the results significantly. Considering that nasal dryness could easily be related to some initial damage caused by SARS-CoV-2, future studies might determine the point in time where patients experiencing abnormal nasal dryness begin to develop other COVID-19 symptoms.

    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.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.11.18.20233874v1 on medRxiv