[Impaired sense of taste--diagnosis and treatment]

The sense of taste has great importance in health and disease. Complaints of oral discomfort associated with taste disturbances are increasingly met in the clinical setting. Altered taste perception can result from various underlying local or systemic pathology, as well as serious sensorial syndromes. Although they are not straightforward to diagnose and manage, it is important for the clinician to understand the pathphysiology of this chemosensory system, and to be able to use objective measures in order to quantify and classify the apparent symptoms, thus making the first step to correct diagnosis and treatment.