Assessment of olfactory and gustatory functions in COVID-19 patients

Background/aim: This study aims to evaluate of olfactory and gustatory functions of COVID-19 patients and possible risk factors for olfactory and gustatory dysfunctions. Materials and methods: The cross-sectional study included adult patients who were diagnosed with COVID-19 in Gazi University Hospital between April 2020 and June 2020. Volunteered patients participated in a survey in which olfactory and gustatory functions and various clinical information were questioned. Sinonasal Outcome Test-22 was also administrated to all patients. Results: A hundred and seventy-one patients participated in this study. Olfactory and gustatory dysfunctions rates were 10.5% (n: 18) and 10.5% (n: 18), respectively. Patients without any symptom other than smell and taste dysfunctions were clustered as group 1 and patients who are clinically symptomatic were clustered as group 2. Olfactory dysfunction occurred in 8% of group 1 and 17.4% of group 2 (p = 0.072). Gustatory dysfunction rate of smokers was 19.7% and significantly higher than gustatory dysfunction rate of nonsmokers (5.5%) (p = 0.007). Twenty-seven-point-eight percent of the patients with olfactory dysfunction (n = 5) were male and 72.2% (n: 13) were female. Sex did not show significant effect on rate of olfactory dysfunction. Twenty-five patients participated in psychophysical olfactory function test. No participant reported olfactory dysfunction at the time of test. Of the participants, 64% (n: 16) were normosmic and 36% (n: 9) were hyposmic according to Sniffin' Stick test. Conclusion: Olfactory and gustatory dysfunctions are more common in patients who are clinically symptomatic than those diagnosed during contact tracing. Objective tests may show that frequency of olfactory dysfunction is greater than frequency of self-reported olfactory dysfunction.

The role of gold weight implants in the management of paralytic lagophthalmos.

BACKGROUND: The study aims to evaluate the usage of gold weight implants and monitor complaints and comfort of patients. METHODS: A hundred and ninety-one implantations performed between January 2009 and January 2019 were analyzed. Seventy-eight patients included in this study The average age of the patients was 51.3 ± 14.5 years. Forty-five (57.7%) of them were male and 33 (42.3%) female. Patient satisfaction was measured with a questionnaire containing the most common complaints related to gold weight in the literature through telephone surveys. RESULTS: The average follow-up time was 74.5 months. Ninety-three-point-five percent of subjects had operational causes, among which the most widespread was acoustic neuroma (44.9%). The average time between facial paralysis and implantation was 141.1 days. Implantation was performed 26.6 days on average after acoustic neuroma surgery and 3.2 days on average after temporal zone malignancy surgery. Thirty-eight patients had their implants removed over either complication (n = 14) or recovery (n = 24). Recovery was the fastest after facial nerve decompression (mean= 4.75 ± 3.6 (2-10) months) and the slowest after 7-12 cranial nerve transfer (mean= 18.3 ± 8.2 (3-31) months). Twenty-six-point-nine percent (n = 21) of patients had complications, of which the most common was extrusion (n = 10). The overall satisfaction rate was 88.5% with the highest in visual acuity and the lowest in continuous requirement for artificial tear. DISCUSSION: The gold weight implantation is an effective, reversible, and easy procedure significantly reducing complaints regarding paralytic lagophthalmos. Early implementation may be beneficial for ocular complications. A dynamic facial reanimation could terminate need of implant.