Soon after the outbreak of COVID-19, reports that smell and taste are disrupted by the illness drew the attention of chemosensory scientists and clinicians throughout the world. While other upper respiratory viruses are known to produce such disruptions, their occurrence with the deadly and highly infectious SARS-CoV-2 virus raised new questions about the nature of the deficits, their cause, and whether they might serve as indicators of the onset of the disease. Published in the July and August 2020 issues of Chemical Senses are 2 innovative, large-scale survey studies that were quickly devised and launched by separate multinational groups to address these questions in olfaction, taste, and chemesthesis. The surveys, which took different approaches and had somewhat different goals, add significant new data on the incidence and severity of smell loss in COVID-19, and the potential for olfactory dysfunction to serve as an indicator of the spread and severity of the disease. Less definitive evidence of the frequency, characteristics, and magnitude of disruptions in taste and chemesthesis point to the need for future survey studies that combine and refine the strengths of the present ones, as well as clinical studies designed to selectively measure deficits in all 3 chemosensory systems.

中文翻译：

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调查 COVID-19 中的化学感觉功能障碍

COVID-19 爆发后不久，有关嗅觉和味觉被疾病扰乱的报道引起了全世界化学感应科学家和临床医生的注意。虽然已知其他上呼吸道病毒会产生这种破坏，但它们与致命且具有高度传染性的 SARS-CoV-2 病毒一起出现，引发了关于缺陷的性质、原因以及它们是否可以作为发病指标的新问题。这种病。发表于 2020 年 7 月和 8 月的化学感官是 2 项创新的大规模调查研究，它们是由不同的跨国集团迅速设计和发起的，旨在解决这些嗅觉、味觉和化学感受方面的问题。这些调查采用了不同的方法，目标也有所不同，增加了关于 COVID-19 嗅觉丧失的发生率和严重程度的重要新数据，以及嗅觉功能障碍的可能性，作为疾病传播和严重程度的指标。关于味觉和化学感觉中断的频率、特征和程度的不太确定的证据表明需要未来的调查研究，结合和完善现有研究的优势，以及旨在选择性测量所有 3 种化学感觉缺陷的临床研究系统。