Prevalence of Chemosensory Dysfunction in COVID-19 Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis Reveals Significant Ethnic Differences.
ACS Chem Neurosci
; 11(19): 2944-2961, 2020 10 07.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-739109
Preprint
This scientific journal article is probably based on a previously available preprint. It has been identified through a machine matching algorithm, human confirmation is still pending.
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This scientific journal article is probably based on a previously available preprint. It has been identified through a machine matching algorithm, human confirmation is still pending.
See preprint
ABSTRACT
A significant proportion of people who test positive for COVID-19 have chemosensory deficits. However, the reported prevalence of these deficits in smell and taste varies widely, and the reason for the differences between studies is unclear. We determined the pooled prevalence of such chemosensory deficits in a systematic review and meta-analysis. We searched the COVID-19 portfolio of the National Institutes of Health for studies that reported the prevalence of smell or taste deficits or both in patients diagnosed with COVID-19. One-hundred-four studies reporting on 38â¯198 patients qualified and were subjected to a systematic review and meta-analysis. Estimated random prevalence of olfactory dysfunction was 43.0%, that of taste dysfunction was 44.6%, and that of overall chemosensory dysfunction was 47.4%. We examined the effects of age, gender, disease severity, and ethnicity on chemosensory dysfunction. Prevalence of smell or taste dysfunction or both decreased with older age, male gender, and disease severity. Ethnicity was highly significant Caucasians had a three times higher prevalence of chemosensory dysfunctions (54.8%) than Asians (17.7%). The finding of geographic differences points to two causes that are not mutually exclusive. A virus mutation (D614G) may cause differing infectivity, while at the host level genetic, ethnicity-specific variants of the virus-binding entry proteins may facilitate virus entry in the olfactory epithelium and taste buds. Both explanations have major implications for infectivity, diagnosis, and management of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pneumonia, Viral
/
Coronavirus Infections
/
Asian People
/
White People
/
Olfaction Disorders
Type of study:
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
/
Reviews
/
Systematic review/Meta Analysis
Topics:
Variants
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
ACS Chem Neurosci
Year:
2020
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Acschemneuro.0c00460
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