Patients with Taste Disorders in a Hospital's Dental Department and Strategies for Taste Disorders

Background/Objectives: A retrospective study was conducted to clarify the clinical characteristics of taste disorder cases at the Department of Oral Medicine of Hokkaido University Hospital. The subjects were 322 taste disorder patients (86 male, 236 female, average age: 66 (13.1) years, mean duration of disorder: 15.2 (20.0) months) who were treated at our department from 2007 to 2018. Methods: Associations between symptoms and classification were examined. Results: When looking at the taste symptoms, 154 cases of quantitative taste disorder were observed as taste loss, abscission, and dissociative taste disorder, and 168 cases of qualitative taste disorder were observed as spontaneous abnormal taste, dysgeusia, and maltaste. There was no relationship between sex and quantitative/qualitative taste disorders at V = 0.08. When looking at the causes of taste disorders, the majority were psychogenic, idiopathic, and oral diseases. Conclusions: Approximately 20% of taste disorders are caused by oral diseases, so it should be noted that oral diseases such as oral candidiasis and xerostomia can cause taste disorders and that many of them can be improved with oral treatment.