• Chenghao Qiu, Chong Cui, Charlotte Hautefort, Antje Haehner, Jun Zhao, Qi Yao, Hui Zeng, Eric J Nisenbaum, Li Liu, Yu Zhao, Di Zhang, Corinna G Levine, Ivette Cejas, Qi Dai, Mei Zeng, Philippe Herman, Clement Jourdaine, de With Katja K Division of Infectious Diseases, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus at the TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany., Julia Draf, Bing Chen, Dushyantha T Jayaweera, James C Denneny, Roy Casiano, Hongmeng Yu, Adrien A Eshraghi, Thomas Hummel, Xuezhong Liu, Yilai Shu, and Hongzhou Lu.
• Center of Stomatology, Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, Shanghai, China.
• Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2020 Oct 1; 163 (4): 714-721.

ObjectiveTo evaluate the prevalence and characteristics of olfactory or gustatory dysfunction in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients.Study DesignMulticenter case series.SettingFive tertiary care hospitals (3 in China, 1 in France, 1 in Germany).Subjects And MethodsIn total, 394 polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-confirmed COVID-19-positive patients were screened, and those with olfactory or gustatory dysfunction were included. Data including demographics, COVID-19 severity, patient outcome, and the incidence and degree of olfactory and/or gustatory dysfunction were collected and analyzed. The Questionnaire of Olfactory Disorders (QOD) and visual analog scale (VAS) were used to quantify olfactory and gustatory dysfunction, respectively. All subjects at 1 hospital (Shanghai) without subjective olfactory complaints underwent objective testing.ResultsOf 394 screened subjects, 161 (41%) reported olfactory and/or gustatory dysfunction and were included. Incidence of olfactory and/or gustatory disorders in Chinese (n = 239), German (n = 39), and French (n = 116) cohorts was 32%, 69%, and 49%, respectively. The median age of included subjects was 39 years, 92 of 161 (57%) were male, and 10 of 161 (6%) were children. Of included subjects, 10% had only olfactory or gustatory symptoms, and 19% had olfactory and/or gustatory complaints prior to any other COVID-19 symptom. Of subjects with objective olfactory testing, 10 of 90 demonstrated abnormal chemosensory function despite reporting normal subjective olfaction. Forty-three percent (44/102) of subjects with follow-up showed symptomatic improvement in olfaction or gustation.ConclusionsOlfactory and/or gustatory disorders may represent early or isolated symptoms of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection. They may serve as a useful additional screening criterion, particularly for the identification of patients in the early stages of infection.

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