Medical treatment of traumatic anosmia
Rong-San Jiang1, Chih-Wen Twu2, Kai-Li Liang3
1Department of Otolaryngology, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan School of Medicine, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan Faculty of Medicine, National Yang-Ming Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Objectives:
To study the effects of zinc and steroid in the treatment of traumatic anosmia.
Study Design:
A prospective, randomized study.
Setting:
Academic medical center.
Subjects And Methods:
Patients with a clear history of loss of smell after head injury and whose thresholds were -1 measured by the phenyl ethyl alcohol threshold test were included in this study from January 2010 to May 2013. They were randomly divided into 4 groups. Patients in group 1 were treated with zinc gluconate for a month and high-dose prednisolone with tapering for 2 weeks. Those in group 2 took only zinc gluconate, and those in group 3 took only prednisolone. Patients in group 4 did not take any medicine. All patients were followed up by phenyl ethyl alcohol threshold testing, and magnetic resonance imaging was performed to measure the volume of olfactory bulbs.
Results:
Thirty-nine patients in group 1, 35 in group 2, 34 in group 3, and 37 in group 4 completed the study. The recovery of olfactory function was observed in 11 patients (28.2%) in group 1, in 9 (25.7%) in group 2, in 4 (11.8%) in group 3, and in 1 (2.7%) in group 4. The recovery rates of olfactory function of groups 1 and 2 were significantly higher than the recovery rate of group 4. The volume of olfactory bulbs was not significantly different between those with and without improved olfactory function.
Conclusion:
Our results show that zinc gluconate has a promising effect in treating traumatic anosmia.
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