Prevalence and Causes of Severe Taste Loss in a Chemosensory Clinic Population

Abstract

Although complete or near-complete olfactory loss has been extensively documented and described, few published reports have documented severe generalized gustatory loss (across qualities and neural fields) with rigorous psychophysical testing, and none have explored the prevalence or causes of such losses in a large clinical population. This study retrospectively reviews our chemosensory clinic's experience of 1,176 patients evaluated for complaints of chemosensory dysfunction in order to address these issues. Our series confirms that despite the complex, bilateral innervation and regenerative capacity of the gustatory system, severe generalized taste loss does occur as a clinical entity, albeit rarely: only 0.85% (n = 10) of our patients evidenced such a deficit, as compared to 32% (n = 371) who were found to have a profound olfactory deficit. Combinations of systemic and/or acute events may underlie many cases of severe taste loss, and in half of our cases, these patients evidenced moderate to complete smell loss as well.