Assessment of Olfactory Function
Olfactory dysfunction is extremely common (affecting up to 20 % of the population) and impacts negatively the quality of life. Since therapies remain very limited, it is mandatory to perform a complete clinical evaluation of patients suffering from olfact
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Philippe Rombaux, Stephanie Collet, and Caroline Huart
Keywords
Smell • Olfaction • Chemosensory event related potentials • Psychophysics • MRI • Olfactory bulb
Core Messages
• Precise clinical workup is mandatory in patients suffering from olfactory dysfunction, in order to (1) accurately assess their olfactory deficit and, hence, provide them appropriate counseling and prognosis, (2) assess recovery from or progression of the olfactory dysfunction, and (3) evaluate a therapeutic success. • Self-assessment of olfactory function is not correlated to the results of olfactory testing.
• In psychophysical evaluation, it is important to evaluate both orthonasal and retronasal olfactory functions since these two pathways have different central processing. • Psychophysical testings are semi-objective techniques and might be subject to patient’s bias. • Electrophysiological techniques are widely used to provide a relatively unbiased evaluation of olfactory system. • MRI is the imaging modality of choice to evaluate the olfactory apparatus.
Ph. Rombaux, MD, PhD (*) Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc, Hippocrate Avenue, 10, Brussels 1200, Belgium
Institute of Neuroscience, Université Catholique de Louvain, Avenue Hippocrate 10, Brussels 1200, Belgium
Institute of Neuroscience, Université Catholique de Louvain, Avenue Hippocrate 10, Brussels 1200, Belgium
ENT Department, CHU UCL Mont Godinne, Avenue Docteur Therasse, Yvoi 5530, Belgium e-mail: [email protected]
HNS & ENT Department, Cliniques Universitaires Saint Luc, Avenue Hippocrate 12, 1200 Brussels, Belgium e-mail: [email protected]
C. Huart, MD Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc, Hippocrate Avenue, 10, Brussels 1200, Belgium
S. Collet, MD Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc, Hippocrate Avenue, 10, Brussels 1200, Belgium
Institute of Neuroscience, Université Catholique de Louvain, Avenue Hippocrate 10, Brussels 1200, Belgium e-mail: [email protected]
T.M. Önerci (ed.), Nasal Physiology and Pathophysiology of Nasal Disorders, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-37250-6_30, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
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Introduction
Evaluation of olfactory function in humans remained poorly explored for a long time. This was mostly due to the difficulty of producing selective and controlled olfactory stimuli (Moncrief 1962). Recently, the development of reliable techniques to investigate olfactory system has led to an increasing interest on the research on this field. Opposite to what has been assumed for many years, our chemosensory systems were shown to be an essential factor in terms of our behavior and well-being (for a review see Stevenson 2010). In the last years, several authors have reported that olfactory disorders occur at a much higher frequency than previously assumed (Murphy et al. 2002; Bramerson et al. 2004; Landis et al. 2004; Landis and Hummel 2006), and it has been reported that 20 %
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