The smell and taste disorders are common in the general population, yet little is known about their nature or causes. This article describes a study of 108 patients with complaints of abnormal smell or taster perception who visited the Wonju
Christian
Hospital Smell and Taste Center. We investigated the olfactory detection threshold using butanol and the whole mouth taste detection threshold tests using sucrose, citric acid, sodium chloride, and quinine chloride.
@ES The results were as follows :
@EN 1) The common causes of olfactory dysfunction were nose and sinus diseases, head trauma, and post-URI group.
2) The degree of olfactory disturbance was more correlated with the patency of olfactory fissure rather than the degree of sinus infection.
3) In head trauma patients with smell dysfunction, the common sites of head injury patients were frontal and skull base area.
4) Dysosmia was more commonly present in post-URI group.
5) Although 17 patients (16%) complained of tast loss, only three (3%) were found to have taste dysfunction at the whole mouth taste tests.
Recently, Zinc sulfate and steroid were introduced for treatment of smell and taste disorders : but it may provide no benifit to patient with chemosensory dysfunction.
Further study are necessary for diagnosis of olfactroy dysfunction and for treatment using the regenerative characterics of olfactory nerve.
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