Doctors from Strasbourg have carried out a one-year study in patients with anosmia, that is to say who have lost their sense of smell after developing Covid-19. Their results, published in the journal Jama Network Open, are very encouraging.
Until now, it was difficult to have benchmarks on the recovery of smell post Covid-19, so new is the virus. Its symptoms and sequelae, including the long term, continue to be discovered every day.
Doctors followed 97 patients (including 67 women) who had lost their sense of smell acutely after 7 days of contamination, for a year.
Most of the sick recovered their sense of smell after 4 months
The idea was to understand the mechanisms of anosmia and see how long it took to go away. They observed that the vast majority of patients were “objectively restored” after 4 months, i.e. 84.3%. For the others, at the end of 12 months, only two candidates had consequences in terms of smell, but 96.1% of the patients had recovered everything.
These statistics are interesting because they give hope to patients who lose their ability to sense things. Anosmia has often been associated with low morale. On the other hand, the researchers point out that it happened that the patients thought they had not recovered everything when the tests pointed out the opposite.
If the results are so good, it is mainly because this symptom often affects young people, with better powers of recovery, explained Marion Renaud, head of clinic of the ENT department in Strabourg, to AFP.
Sources:
- Clinical Outcomes for Patients With Anosmia 1 Year After COVID-19 Diagnosis, JAMA, June 24, 2021.
- AFP
Also read:
- Covid-19: how to cook without taste or smell?
- CovidAnosmia: an application to regain the sense of smell
