Leveraging machine learning and self-administered tests to predict COVID-19:An olfactory and gustatory dysfunction assessment through crowd-sourced data in India

It has been established that smell and taste loss are frequent symptoms during COVID-19 onset. Most evidence stems from medical exams or self-reports. The latter is particularly confounded by the common confusion of smell and taste. Here, we tested whether practical smelling and tasting with household items can be used to assess smell and taste loss. We conducted an online survey and asked participants to use common household items to perform a smell and taste test. We also acquired generic information on demographics, health issues including COVID-19 diagnosis, and current symptoms. We developed several machine learning models to predict COVID-19 diagnosis. We found that the random forest classifier consistently performed better than other models like support vector machines or logistic regression. The smell and taste perception of self-administered household items were statistically different for COVID-19 positive and negative participants. The most frequently selected items that also discriminated between COVID-19 positive and negative participants were clove, coriander seeds, and coffee for smell and salt, lemon juice, and chillies for taste. Our study shows that the results of smelling and tasting household items can be used to predict COVID-19 illness and highlight the potential of a simple home-test to help identify the infection and prevent the spread.

Optic Tract Edema: A Rare Entity in Pituitary Macroadenoma.

Pituitary tumors are relatively common tumors accounting for almost 15% of all primary brain tumors. Pituitary macroadenomas cause mass effect on the optic apparatus causing a myriad of visual deficits. On imaging generally the anterior visual pathway is involved which may be compressed by the mass lesion. Edema in the posterior visual pathway, i.e., optic tracts on magnetic resonance imaging is a relatively common finding in craniopharyngiomas and other metastatic lesions in the pituitary region. Edema in the optic tracts in pituitary macradenomas is a very rare entity as reported by various authors in literature. We report a case of optic tract edema in a case of pituitary macroadenoma which caused rapid deterioration in the vision of the patient and improved after administration of steroids.