Smell and Taste Clinic, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, TU Dresden, Germany; Department of Psychiatry, The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (Guangzhou Huiai Hospital), Guangzhou, China.
Smell and Taste Clinic, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, TU Dresden, Germany.
Rhinology. 2020 Oct 1;58(5):489-494. doi: 10.4193/Rhin19.465.
Patients with olfactory deficits often report rapid and lasting olfactory adaptation compared to the time when they had normal olfactory function. However, this phenomenon receives little scientific attention. This retrospective study aimed to compare the patterns of olfactory adaptation in normosmic controls and patients with olfactory impairment by analyzing the trajectory of turning points in odor threshold tests based on the staircase technique.
4120 subjects (1684 hyposmia, 1742 anosmia and 694 normosmic controls) were included in this study. Their odor threshold, odor discrimination and odor identification ability were assessed using the Sniffin’ Sticks. We analyzed the trajectory of turning points in the odor threshold test.
Current results suggested that patients with hyposmia needed significantly more trials to reach the final threshold scores than controls and anosmic group, and controls needed more trials than anosmic group. The difference between the first turning point and final threshold scores in the anosmic group was significantly larger than in the hyposmia group and in controls.
People with poor olfaction seem to adapt faster to olfactory stimuli. The trajectory of turning points in odor threshold test may serve as an indicator of olfactory adaptation and function of olfactory receptors. Olfactory adaptation may provide a new tool in the assessment of subtle olfactory loss.
嗅觉减退患者的嗅觉适应速度通常比嗅觉正常时快且持续时间长，但这一现象并未得到太多关注。本回顾性研究旨在通过分析基于阶梯法的嗅阈测试转折点轨迹，比较正常嗅觉对照组和嗅觉障碍患者的嗅觉适应模式。
本研究纳入了 4120 名受试者（1684 名嗅觉减退者、1742 名嗅觉丧失者和 694 名正常嗅觉对照组）。使用嗅吸棒测试评估他们的嗅觉阈、嗅觉辨别和嗅觉识别能力。我们分析了嗅阈测试中转折点的轨迹。
当前结果表明，与对照组和嗅觉丧失组相比，嗅觉减退者达到最终阈值分数所需的试验次数明显更多，而对照组所需的试验次数多于嗅觉丧失组。嗅觉丧失组的第一个转折点和最终阈值分数之间的差异明显大于嗅觉减退组和对照组。
嗅觉差的人似乎对嗅觉刺激的适应速度更快。嗅阈测试转折点的轨迹可作为嗅觉适应和嗅觉受体功能的指标。嗅觉适应可能为评估细微嗅觉丧失提供新工具。
