Measurement of chemosensory function

Abstract

Although hundreds of thousands of patients seek medical help annually for disorders of taste and smell, relatively few medical practitioners quantitatively test their patients' chemosensory function, taking their complaints at face value. This is clearly not the approach paid to patients complaining of visual, hearing, or balance problems. Accurate chemosensory testing is essential to establish the nature, degree, and veracity of a patient's complaint, as well as to aid in counseling and in monitoring the effectiveness of treatment strategies and decisions. In many cases, patients perseverate on chemosensory loss that objective assessment demonstrates has resolved. In other cases, patients are malingering. Olfactory testing is critical for not only establishing the validity and degree of the chemosensory dysfunction, but for helping patients place their dysfunction into perspective relative to the function of their peer group. It is well established, for example, that olfactory dysfunction is the rule, rather than the exception, in members of the older population. Moreover, it is now apparent that such dysfunction can be an early sign of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Importantly, older anosmics are three times more likely to die over the course of an ensuring five-year period than their normosmic peers, a situation that may be averted in some cases by appropriate nutritional and safety counseling. This review provides the clinician, as well as the academic and industrial researcher, with an overview of the available means for accurately assessing smell and taste function, including up-to-date information and normative data for advances in this field.

Delayed Puberty—Phenotypic Diversity, Molecular Genetic Mechanisms, and Recent Discoveries

“…Bilateral cryptorchidism or a small penis at birth and hyposmia or anosmia due to hypoplasia of the olfactory bulbs may suggest CHH. Lack of smell associated with KS can be assessed by means of detailed questioning or objectively by formal olfactory test, such as the Pennsylvania smell test (126). Certain other physical signs will increase suspicion of underlying CHH, such as cleft lip or palate, bimanual synkinesia, congenital ptosis and abnormal visual spatial attention, eye movement abnormalities, sensorineural hearing impairment, agenesis of one or several teeth (hypodontia), obesity, and features suggesting the CHARGE syndrome, as well as digital and other skeletal abnormalities (46).…”

Influence of age and sex on taste function of healthy subjects

“…Taste function has been determined using both chemical and electrical stimuli. Several methods have been developed to present chemical stimuli to human subjects, including 'sipping & spitting', tastant strips, taste tablets, cotton swabs, and discs [9][10][11]. Solution-based taste tests have known reliability [6].…”

Prospective observational evaluation of radiation-induced late taste impairment kinetics in oropharyngeal cancer patients: Potential for improvement over time?

“…Taste impairment can occur as hypergeusia (increased taste), hypogeusia (decreased taste), ageusia (loss of taste) or dysgeusia (altered taste) [4]. Various assessment tools have been described, including subjective measures within head and neck specific quality of life questionnaires [5][6][7], and objective measurements with electrogustrometry or taste solutions (chemogustrometry) [8], covering the five taste sensations sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. The most commonly used QoL questionnaire in head and neck cancer patients is the ''EORTC QLQ H&N 35" This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).…”