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Título

Prevalence of Anosmia in Long-Covid patients: A Cohort of 221 Patients

Resumo

Introduction: Olfactory dysfunction (OD), including anosmia and hyposmia is a frequent symptom among upper respiratory symptoms in COVID-19 patients. Long-COVID refers to the persistence of symptoms beyond the initial phase of infection. Of note OD is a frequent symptom in Long-Covid. The suggested pathophysiology of hyposmia and anosmia in Covid-19 involves the injury caused by SARS-CoV-2 to nasal mucosa and olfactory bulb, considering its high expression of angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), as the virus has a high neurotropism for it. Objective: To analyze quantitatively the epidemiology of OD as a long-term effect of coronavirus infection in a cohort of patients. Methods: We performed a prospective cohort study with patients followed in a post-COVID neurological outpatient clinic. Patients were recruited based on positive COVID-19 PCR and post-COVID neurological symptoms. Patients were evaluated by neurological examination, Addenbrooke Cognitive Scale (ACE-R) and laboratory tests for APOE genotyping. OD was evaluated by clinical complaint and simple olfactory examination. The duration of the OD was estimated in basis of clinical history and day of evaluation. Results: The final sample consisted of 221 patients. Nearly half of patients (N =101; 45.7%) had OD during COVID-19 infection. More than a half of these patients (N = 65; 64.34%) persisted with OD for an average of 6.33.8 months. Subjects with persistent OD had 40.613.3 years and those without persisten OD had 48.814.2 years (p<0.01). Gender (p=0.54), ACER score (p=0.26), allele frequency in Apolipoprotein epsilon genotype test (p=0.30) showed no significant difference between groups. Conclusion: Persistent of OD is a common clinical manifestation in patients with COVID-19. Our study identified that younger age is a risk factor for persistent olfactory dysfunction. It should be noted that patients with dementia and elderly patients may not have brought this complaint to the consultation, raising the age of this group of participants.

Palavras Chave

neurology; COVID-19; Long-COVID; olfactory disfunction