3.1 Patient-reported outcomes
The patients have been asked to report on their subjective smell-related
complaints or experiences prior to the Sniffin’ Sticks-test. On the
first examination, on the day of hospital discharge, 30 patients
reported anosmia and 23 hyposmia (without being able to specify any
specific odorant at all). Regarding patient-reported gustatory outcomes,
18 patients reported ageusia, 22 hypogeusia and 3 of them phantogeusia
(an often metallic or salty taste in the mouth for which no external
stimulus can be found), the rest 10 reported a normogeusia. On the
second examination, 4-6 weeks later, fourteen participants reported
normosmia, seven reported anosmia, and 32 hyposmia. Additionally, 22 of
them reported hypogeusia, 4 patients reported dysgeusia and 8 ageusia.
Interestingly 6 of them reported allogeusia. The rest 13 reported no
taste alterations. The results are depicted in Table 1.