Dysosmia and dysgeusia as differential diagnostics for clinical triaging of COVID-19 cases

Smell and taste disorders are recognized as frequent, and often the only, signs occurring in the early phase of SARS-Cov-2 infection and in many cases perdure as post-viral symptoms. This evidence raised a general reconsideration of chemosensory deficits, further suggesting that their appearance can be considered as a discriminative and predictive tool to detect COVID-19 cases. In this study, encompassing the first and second pandemic wave, participants estimated their olfactory and gustatory sensitivity, plus they were administered the validated Brief Smell Identification Test (BSIT). We observed that smell and taste impairments were mainly experienced by COVID-19-positive subjects with comparable severity of respiratory symptoms as non-COVID-19 patients. In addition, we noticed that the diagnostic power of subjective olfactory assessments upon SARS-Cov-2 infection is comparable to quantitative evaluation, suggesting that self-reporting could be adopted as the first line of intervention, anticipating more exhaustive procedures aimed at containing COVID-19 diffusion and consequently preserving general health. Overall, results from this work share similarity with other studies, therefore further underlying that olfactory and gustatory disbalance can be distinctive hallmarks in COVID-19 continuum.