Proportion of New Onset of Anosmia and Its Diagnostic Significance in COVID-19

Ripu Daman Arora; Kota Sesha Brahma Sree Krishna Sasanka; Pugazhenthan Thangaraju; Sree Sudha Tanguturi Yella; Nitin M Nagarkar

doi:10.7759/cureus.24983

Proportion of New Onset of Anosmia and Its Diagnostic Significance in COVID-19

Cureus. 2022 May 13;14(5):e24983. doi: 10.7759/cureus.24983. eCollection 2022 May.

Authors

Ripu Daman Arora¹, Kota Sesha Brahma Sree Krishna Sasanka², Pugazhenthan Thangaraju³, Sree Sudha Tanguturi Yella⁴, Nitin M Nagarkar¹

Affiliations

¹ Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (ENT-HNS), All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Raipur, IND.
² Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (ENT-HNS), All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Deoghar, IND.
³ Pharmacology and Therapeutics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Raipur, IND.
⁴ Pharmacology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Deoghar, IND.

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to know the proportion of new-onset of anosmia and to find its diagnostic significance in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients attending the hospital. Study design and duration: The Indian smell test in COVID-19 by AIIMS Raipur (ISCA-R) was developed for evaluating olfaction in the Indian population. The olfactory function was assessed using the corona scale on anosmia AIIMS Raipur (COSANAr).

Results: Out of 256 patients, 171 were males and 85 were females. In the majority of the patients, 75 (29.29%), the COSANAr score "0" was higher on the day of admission compared to the score "3" on the day of discharge with 61 (23.82%) patients. There was no improvement in 134 (52.34%) patients with loss of smell at the time of discharge.

Conclusion: This study is a step forward in identifying anosmia by ISCA-R at the early stages of the COVID phase. The COSANAr is affordable for the Indian population. It is noticed that most of the patients have mild hyposmia at the time of discharge and anosmia at the admission time.

Keywords: anosmia; cosanar (corana scale on anosmia aiims raipur) scale; covid-19; hyposmia; isca-r (indian smell test in covid by aiims raipur); loss of smell; olfactory dysfunction.