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Acute Olfactory Dysfunction—A Primary Presentation of COVID-19 Infection
COVID-19 is a zoonotic illness caused by a new strain of coronavirus and has recently been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, with an estimated fatality rate of 1% to 2%. Early identification and isolation of patients in the preliminary infective stage has been a mainstay of most...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
SAGE Publications
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7412078/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32757995 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0145561320940119 |
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author | Brookes, Natalie R. G. Fairley, James W. Brookes, Gerald B. |
author_facet | Brookes, Natalie R. G. Fairley, James W. Brookes, Gerald B. |
author_sort | Brookes, Natalie R. G. |
collection | PubMed |
description | COVID-19 is a zoonotic illness caused by a new strain of coronavirus and has recently been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, with an estimated fatality rate of 1% to 2%. Early identification and isolation of patients in the preliminary infective stage has been a mainstay of most governmental strategies in order to limit transmission. Four otherwise healthy patients presented to a specialist open access Ear, Nose & Throat Clinic in central London with acute total or subtotal loss of their sense of smell in a single one-week period, coinciding with rapid escalation of COVID-19 infection in the indigenous population. The diagnosis was confirmed by the validated University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT) in 3. Endoscopic examination and magnetic resonance imaging (2 cases) excluded a range of alternative potential pathological conditions. Covid-19 antibody testing carried out 6 to 8 weeks after the onset of nasal symptoms showed positive immunoglobulin G antibodies in 3 of the 4 patients. Acute severe anosmia is therefore almost certainly an unusual presenting local nasal feature of a COVID-19 viral infection. All 4 patients achieved significant partial olfactory recovery by one week after treatment with subjective ratings of 40% to 85% of normal (mean 60%) and complete olfaction recovery after 2 to 3 weeks in all 4 patients. The significance, possible pathogenesis, and public health implications are highlighted and discussed. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7412078 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | SAGE Publications |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-74120782020-08-10 Acute Olfactory Dysfunction—A Primary Presentation of COVID-19 Infection Brookes, Natalie R. G. Fairley, James W. Brookes, Gerald B. Ear Nose Throat J Online Exclusive COVID-19 is a zoonotic illness caused by a new strain of coronavirus and has recently been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, with an estimated fatality rate of 1% to 2%. Early identification and isolation of patients in the preliminary infective stage has been a mainstay of most governmental strategies in order to limit transmission. Four otherwise healthy patients presented to a specialist open access Ear, Nose & Throat Clinic in central London with acute total or subtotal loss of their sense of smell in a single one-week period, coinciding with rapid escalation of COVID-19 infection in the indigenous population. The diagnosis was confirmed by the validated University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT) in 3. Endoscopic examination and magnetic resonance imaging (2 cases) excluded a range of alternative potential pathological conditions. Covid-19 antibody testing carried out 6 to 8 weeks after the onset of nasal symptoms showed positive immunoglobulin G antibodies in 3 of the 4 patients. Acute severe anosmia is therefore almost certainly an unusual presenting local nasal feature of a COVID-19 viral infection. All 4 patients achieved significant partial olfactory recovery by one week after treatment with subjective ratings of 40% to 85% of normal (mean 60%) and complete olfaction recovery after 2 to 3 weeks in all 4 patients. The significance, possible pathogenesis, and public health implications are highlighted and discussed. SAGE Publications 2020-11 /pmc/articles/PMC7412078/ /pubmed/32757995 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0145561320940119 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
spellingShingle | Online Exclusive Brookes, Natalie R. G. Fairley, James W. Brookes, Gerald B. Acute Olfactory Dysfunction—A Primary Presentation of COVID-19 Infection |
title | Acute Olfactory Dysfunction—A Primary Presentation of COVID-19 Infection |
title_full | Acute Olfactory Dysfunction—A Primary Presentation of COVID-19 Infection |
title_fullStr | Acute Olfactory Dysfunction—A Primary Presentation of COVID-19 Infection |
title_full_unstemmed | Acute Olfactory Dysfunction—A Primary Presentation of COVID-19 Infection |
title_short | Acute Olfactory Dysfunction—A Primary Presentation of COVID-19 Infection |
title_sort | acute olfactory dysfunction—a primary presentation of covid-19 infection |
topic | Online Exclusive |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7412078/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32757995 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0145561320940119 |
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