Results:
Complete evaluation was performed in 47 patients, including 25 females. Patients were hospitalized in EpiCURA hospital from March, 20th, 2020 to April, 16th, 2020. Evaluations were conducted 41.0±10.3 days after the onset of symptoms, corresponding to 1-2 weeks after the end of the hospitalization. Clinical outcomes are reported in Table 1. The most prevalent symptoms were: fever, asthenia and anorexia. The mean duration of symptoms before hospitalization was 10.7±5.0 days. Eight patients were hospitalized in intensive care unit (ICU) for a mean duration of 8.5±5.6 days. The CT-scan and blood tests features are reported in Table 1.
Psychophysical olfactory evaluations indicated that 4 (8.5%) and 9 (19.1%) patients reported anosmia and hyposmia (in the entire cohort), respectively (Table 2). Note that three hyposmic patients reported in the patient-reported outcome questionnaire that they have hyposmia prior the infection. Excluding these three patients, the prevalence of objective SLS in our cohort was 21.3%.
Eight and 10 patients experienced -subjective- total and partial loss of smell, respectively, over the clinical course of the disease; accounting for 38.3% of individuals. Among them, only 3 and 4 were anosmic and hyposmic (38.9%), respectively. The three patients who experienced hyposmia prior the pandemic were not included in the subjective SLS patients. According to subjective evaluations of olfaction, 38.3% of patients complained from SLS. Additional olfactory outcomes are reported in Table 2.
Patients with diabetes had lower sniffin’sticks test results compared with those without diabetes (Mann Whitney U test; p=0.045). The linear regression analyses revealed significant negative associations between the sniffin’sticks test and age (rs=-0.339; p=0.032). Symptom duration was significantly correlated with the severity of fever (rs=0.395; p=0.046) and dysphonia (rs=0.572; p=0.002). Duration of hospitalization was significantly correlated with age (rs=0.402; p=0.008). Serum IgG concentration measured by the SARS-CoV-2 LIAISON test (Diasorin, Centralino, Italy) was negatively correlated with the severity of nasal burning (rs=-0.407; p=0.029).