In a new study, researchers found that reduced sense of smell, or olfactory dysfunction, is one of the most common symptoms of COVID-19.
They examined its prevalence and recovery in patients with varying degrees of severity of COVID-19.
The research was conducted by a team at Paris Saclay University.
In the study, the team tested 2,581 patients from 18 European hospitals.
They found that the patient-reported prevalence of olfactory dysfunction was 85.9% in mild cases of COVID-19, 4.5% in moderate cases, and 6.9% in severe-to-critical cases.
The average duration of olfactory dysfunction reported by patients was 21.6 days, but nearly one-quarter of affected patients reported that they did not recover their sense of smell 60 days after losing it.
Objective clinical evaluations identified olfactory dysfunction in 54.7% of mild cases of COVID-19 and 36.6% of moderate-to-critical cases of COVID-19.
At 60 days and 6 months, 15.3% and 4.7% of these patients did not objectively recover their sense of smell, respectively.
The team says olfactory dysfunction is more prevalent in mild COVID-19 forms than in moderate-to-critical forms, and 95% of patients recover their sense of smell at 6-months post-infection.
One author of the study is Jerome R. Lechien, MD, Ph.D., MS.
The study is published in the Journal of Internal Medicine.
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