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Objective/Hypothesis: With the COVID‐19 pandemic, chemosensory dysfunction are among the most prevalent symptoms. Most reports are subjective evaluations, which have been suggested to be unreliable. The objective is to test chemosensory dysfunction and recovery based on extensive psychophysical tests in COVID‐19 during the course of the disease. Study Design: Prospective cohort study. Methods: A total of 111 patients from four centers participated in the study. All tested positive for SARS‐COV‐2 with RT‐PCR. They were tested within 3 days of diagnosis and 28 to 169 days after infection. Testing included extensive olfactory testing with the Sniffin' Sticks test for threshold, discrimination and identification abilities, and with the Taste Sprays and Taste Strips for gustatory function for quasi‐threshold and taste identification abilities. Results: There was a significant difference in olfactory function during and after infection. During infection 21% were anosmic, 49% hyposmic, and 30% normosmic. After infection only 1% were anosmic, 26% hyposmic, and 73% normosmic. For gustatory function, there was a difference for all taste qualities, but significantly in sour, bitter, and total score. Twenty‐six percent had gustatory dysfunction during infection and 6.5% had gustatory dysfunction after infection. Combining all tests 22% had combined olfactory and gustatory dysfunction during infection. After infection no patients had combined dysfunction. Conclusions: Chemosensory dysfunction is very common in COVID‐19, either as isolated smell or taste dysfunction or a combined dysfunction. Most people regain their chemosensory function within the first 28 days, but a quarter of the patients show persisting dysfunction, which should be referred to specialist smell and taste clinics for rehabilitation of chemosensory function. Level of Evidence: 3 Laryngoscope, 131:1095–1100, 2021 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Olfactory dysfunction is deemed to be a significant contributor to poor quality of life in chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS). Objective To assess and to compare the effectiveness of three modalities of corticosteroids administration in patients with CRS. Study Design A prospective randomized controlled study Methods Thirty patients with CRS were randomized in three groups depending on the route of corticosteroids administration: 16 days by oral route (Medrol (Pfizer, Belgique), 32 mg/8 days −16 mg/4 days-8 mg/4 days); nasal spray (Rhinocort (AstraZeneca, Belgique), 2 × 2 × 64 µg/nostril); or sonic nebulization (Pulmicort (AstraZeneca, Belgique), 2 × 1 mg/4 mL) (Sonic nebulizer, AOHBOX-NL11SN, DTF, France). Olfactory function was assessed using orthonasal threshold discrimination identification and retronasal psychophysical olfactory tests (RNT) before and after the treatment. Same intranasal modalities were previously tested for in vitro airways scintigraphic deposition. Results In vitro differences in drug deposition pattern between both intranasal modalities were demonstrated. Threshold discrimination identification and RNT were similar between three groups at baseline. Threshold discrimination identification improved by 5.5, 5.8, and −1.1 for sonic nebulization, oral, and nasal spray groups, respectively ( P = 0.010). This improvement was clinically relevant for oral and nebulized administration. It was similar between oral and nebulized administration but significantly higher than nasal spray administration. Retronasal psychophysical olfactory tests improved similarly for the three groups ( P = 0.231) Conclusion Effectiveness of sonic nebulized and oral administration is demonstrated on orthonasal olfactory. The clinical benefit is better than with nasal spray. Level of Evidence 1b. Laryngoscope, 125:549-555, 2015 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This report describes cartilaginous regeneration in a cricoarytenoid joint affected by spondyloarthropathy using tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) blockade, monitored by magnetic resonance (MR) and computed tomography (CT) imaging. This case is interesting for several reasons. It is only the eighth case of destructive ankylosing spondylitis-related cricoarytenoid arthritis published in the English language literature. It describes, for the first time, full recovery of vocal cord mobility following TNF-α blockade. It is also the first case to be published with MR imaging demonstrating regeneration of the cricoarytenoid cartilage following treatment. This case represents a landmark in the treatment of patients presenting with destructive arthritis involving the cricoarytenoid joint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives/Hypothesis: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the course of olfactory dysfunction in patients with olfactory loss following infections of the upper respiratory tract. Study Design: Prospective cohort. Methods: A total of 27 patients were included; each patient was evaluated twice. Psychophysical testing of olfactory function was performed with the Sniffin' Sticks test and chemosensory functions with event-related potential (ERP). Results: At T1, 15 patients were considered hyposmic, 12 as anosmic. Accordingly, nine and 27 patients demonstrated olfactory ERP. At T2, 16 and 11 patients were considered as hyposmic and anosmic, and 11 demonstrated olfactory ERP. Analysis of variance did not show significant differences for any parameters between T1 and T2: threshold, discrimination, identification (TDI) scores at the Sniffin' Sticks and amplitudes and latencies of N1 and P2 in the ERP. However, seven patients demonstrated an increase of more or equal to six points at the TDI score, indicating significant improvement. Four of the seven patients had olfactory ERP at T1 (57%); of those patients who did not show improvement, five of 20 (25%) exhibited olfactory ERP. Thus, the presence of olfactory ERP predicts a positive evolution of olfactory function with a relatively high specificity of 83%. Conclusions: The current findings clearly confirm earlier results on recovery rate of postinfectious olfactory loss. The new finding is that the presence of olfactory ERP at the first consultation is also a positive predictive factor of a favorable outcome in this disease. Laryngoscope, 2010 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]