[Etiologies, treatment and prognosis of olfactory dysfunction]

Olfaction is one of the ancient sensing capabilities and plays an important role in monitoring environment. Although olfactory loss is common, it's obviously underappretiated by medical community generally. In order to help patients with those problems, the author gives an brief review about the characters of common etiologies, treatment and prognosis of Olfactory Dysfunction. It's concluded that most usual causes resulting in dysos- mia are upper-respiratory-tract infections, trauma, and chronic rhinosinusitis; and our understanding of the olfaction mechanism grows, but frustratingly, aside from the possible therapeutic potential of systemic steroids, no method has been proved to have solid evidence for curing olfactory loss; so we need more new basic and clinic research to develop effective therapeutic intervention.