Hypogeusia as a complication of uvulopalatopharyngoplasty and use of taste strips as a practical tool for quantifying hypogeusia

Abstract

Hypogeusia is an uncommon complication of uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP) and few reports in the literature have documented it. Excision of part of the soft palate and damage to the glossopharyngeal nerve or its lingual branch as a result of diathermy or surgery are the possible causes. The case of a 45-year-old male who suffered hypogeusia following UPPP is reported herein. He reported no improvement over a 6-month period. Quantitative assessment of his taste threshold for the 4 basic tastes using taste strips showed a score of 7/18, indicating hypogeusia. The possibility of taste disorder as a postoperative complication should be discussed before patients consent to UPPP Postoperative taste threshold assessment should be done using taste strips if the patient complains of taste disorders.

Taste Disturbance after Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty for Obstructive Sleep Apnea

“…Three studies reported that taste disturbance comprised 7% to 10% of all post-UPPP complications. 9 The incidence of 4.6% in our series was compatible with what has been documented previously. These results support that taste disturbance could exist after palatopharyngeal surgery for OSA and patients must be informed of this potential complication prior to surgery.…”

“…[5][6][7][8] Nevertheless, a recent study reported that UPPP could lead to hypogeusia by compromising the taste acuity of the soft palate or by excision of taste receptors on the soft palate. 9 To the best of our knowledge, there are no original articles reporting or analyzing the cause and characteristic of taste disturbance after palatopharyngeal surgery for OSA. Therefore the aims of this study were to investigate the factors that may attribute to taste disturbance after surgeries for OSA and to assess the characteristics of taste deficiency by gustatory function tests.…”

Gustatory function after microlaryngoscopy

“…tooth extraction [11] or uvulopalatopharyngoplasty [12], MLS [4 Á6]) or even intubation, only a few studies have systematically investigated the occurrence of taste disorders after MLS [1,9,13]. With one exception [13], these studies have not measured taste function, but solely asked the patients whether they experienced taste dysfunctions [1,3,9].…”

“Taste Strips” – A rapid, lateralized, gustatory bedside identification test based on impregnated filter papers

“…The shelf life is much longer than that of liquid solutions. Although this test has already resulted in a series of publications [14,22,34,36,39] and was proven reliable concerning the investigation of tongue side differences [21,29] and gustatory testing before and after an intervention [30,37], the initially proposed test procedure had some shortcomings. First, the paper by Mueller et al [36] was based on solely 69 observations.…”