[Usefulness of smell and taste examination in the assessments of late results of craniofacial trauma].
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
SEARCH · Search PubMed
Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Partial loss of taste function can take a variety of forms. Losses can be specific to one taste quality or to one tongue locus. In addition, the shapes of psychophysical functions can be altered so that taste intensity no longer grows normally with concentration. Magnitude matching, an efficient psychophysical scaling method (based on magnitude estimation of stimuli from two sensory continua), can provide a relatively quick assessment of a patient's ability to taste the four taste qualities--sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. When taste intensity and loudness are scaled in the same session, a person with normal hearing who has taste loss will match taste intensities to abnormally weak sounds. Spatial losses are detected by placing pieces of filter paper soaked in taste solutions on specific tongue loci. Dysgeusia, the presence of a chronic taste in the mouth, can result from abnormal substances in the mouth (e.g., via saliva or from poor oral hygiene) or can reflect disorders of the central nervous system.
Loss of a single nerve function in the peripheral network responsible for taste perception is traditionally considered clinically insignificant. However, we report the case of a 27-year-old woman who experienced significant selective taste loss for salt after manipulation of the chorda tympani during tympanoplasty. This effect may be explained by disorder of the functional neuroanatomy of salty taste perception together with strong lateralization of mastication to the affected side in this patient. Recently described inhibition of cranial nerve IX by cranial nerve VII is hypothesized as contributing to the contradiction between this case and the commonly accepted role of the chorda tympani in taste perception.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
The article deals with the case of a patient who had a partial gastrectomy and developed a vitamin B12 deficiency syndrome with anemia, myelopathy and complete loss of the senses of taste and smell. Regression of the symptoms followed liberal dosing with vitamin B12.
A nutritional evaluation was performed in 72 patients with advanced solid tumors receiving chemotherapy: 35 patients (49%) were considered malnourished and 37 (51%) were considered normal. The malnourished group showed a significantly lower caloric intake than the normal group (1214 +/- 360 vs 2088 +/- 607; P less than 0.001) and a higher incidence of severe depression (16 of 27 patients [59%] vs six of 30 [20%]; P = 0.026). No significant difference was found between the normal and malnourished patients in reference to emesis, glucose tasting threshold, or tumor burden.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
This study evaluates osmophobia and taste abnormalities in relationship to sensitivity and specificity in the classification of migraine. Consecutive International Headache Society (IHS) classified patients (n = 1237) were evaluated. Symptoms were graded from 0 to 3. Osmophobia and taste abnormalities were tested for sensitivity and specificity in migraine diagnosis. The patients were 85.4% female and their mean age was 38.1 years. Of 673 patients 24.7% complained of osmophobia, and 24.6% of 505 complained of taste abnormalities. In the absence of nausea and vomiting the combinations of two symptoms gave the following sensitivity and specificity percentages, respectively: photophobia and phonophobia, 10.6 and 84.9; photophobia and osmophobia, 1.1 and 99.0; phonophobia and osmophobia, 1.1 and 98.6; photophobia and taste abnormality, 9.6 and 99.0; phonophobia and taste abnormality, 9.6 and 98.8; and osmophobia and taste abnormality, 4.2 and 99.4. Osmophobia and taste abnormalities were demonstrated to be very specific in diagnosing migraine IHS 1.1-1.6, but very insensitive.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
It was revealed that Zinc deficiency might cause taste and smell dysfunction. Superoxide dismutase (SOD), which scavenges superoxide, is a type of zinc enzyme. It was also demonstrated that the overproduction of superoxide damages normal tissue. We therefore measured the activity of SOD in serum and saliva of patients with taste or smell dysfunction by the cytochrome C reduction method using a xanthine-xanthine oxidase system. As a result, in the patients with taste dysfunction, the activities of SOD in both serum and saliva were normal, but mean level of serum Zinc was near to the lower normal limit. On the other hand, in the patients with smell dysfunction caused by chronic sinusitis or common cold, the activity of SOD in serum was significantly lower than that of healthy volunteers, and that in saliva was normal. These results suggest that Zinc enzymes, except serum and salivary SOD, are involved in the sense of taste, and that further investigation is necessary to clarify the relation between serum SOD deficiency and olfactory dysfunction.
BACKGROUND: Taste and smell dysfunction has been reported to occur in patients with a variety of clinical problems. We wanted to investigate a specific group of patients in whom taste and smell dysfunction occurred putatively related to a specific biochemical abnormality in a salivary growth factor [gustin/carbonic anhydrase (CA) VI] considered responsible for maintenance of taste bud function. METHODS: Eighteen patients developed loss and/or distortion of taste and smell after an acute influenza-type illness. They were evaluated clinically, by psychophysical tests of taste and smell function, by measurement of parotid salivary gustin/CAVI by a radioimmunoassay and by measurement of serum, urine, and salivary zinc. Biopsies of circumvallate papillae were obtained in 6 patients and examined by transmission electron microscopy. Similar studies were performed in 55 asymptomatic volunteers with biopsies of circumvallate papillae performed in 4. RESULTS: Taste and smell acuity were impaired in patients compared with healthy volunteers and parotid gustin/CAVI, salivary, and serum zinc concentrations were lower in patients than in healthy volunteers. Taste buds in circumvallate papillae of patients exhibited severe vacuolization, cellular degeneration, and absence of dense extracellular material. CONCLUSIONS: These results describe a clinical disorder formulated as a syndrome of hyposmia (decreased smell acuity), hypogeusia (decreased taste acuity), dysosmia (distorted smell function), dysgeusia (distorted taste function), and decreased secretion of parotid saliva gustin/CAVI with associated pathological changes in taste bud anatomy. Because gustin/CAVI is found in humans only in parotid saliva and has been associated with taste bud growth and development these results suggest that inhibition of synthesis of gustin/CAVI is associated with development of taste bud abnormalities and thereby loss of taste function.
BACKGROUND AND RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: Promoting adequate nutritional intake of patients with heart failure (HF) is an essential component of comprehensive management. This goal can be hampered by decreased appetite, as well as psychological, social, and HF-related factors that can affect food intake. Factors related to aging may also affect food intake in older patients. The purpose of this study was to compare patients with HF to healthy elders regarding the extent to which they perceived how appetite and hunger, emotional and social, and illness factors affected the amount of food they ate in the previous week. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Sixty-seven patients with HF were recruited from 3 Midwestern HF clinics. As part of a larger study examining nutrition in HF, patients filled out the Food Eating Experiences and Diet (FEED) questionnaire, an instrument designed to assess factors affecting appetite and hunger. Patients were asked to rate their hunger and appetite on a visual analog scale. On Likert-type scales, they rated the extent to which appetite/hunger, emotional/social, and illness factors affected the amount of food intake. Sixty-eight healthy elders were recruited from 2 Midwestern senior citizen centers. As part of a study collecting a large data set for comparison with HF patients, healthy elders provided demographic and health information and filled out the FEED questionnaire. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Factors rated as affecting food intake most often by patients with HF were decreased hunger sensations, diet restrictions, fatigue, shortness of breath, nausea, anxiety, and sadness. Factors rated most often by healthy elders as affecting food intake were diminished hunger sensations, early satiety, eating alone, and decreased senses of taste and smell. Among patients with HF, many factors unique from those present due to age were reported to affect food intake.
Burning Mouth Syndrome (BMS) is a sensory disorder which results in constant, bilateral burning pain of the tongue, lips, and other oral mucous membranes. Atypical odontalgia (AO) is another sensory disorder, usually defined as a toothache-like pain for which no dental cause can be identified. Previous literature has suggested that AO is often associated with a concomitant temporomandibular disorder (TMD). This hypothesis paper explores the possibility that BMS, AO and TMD can be related through hyperactivity of both the sensory and motor components of the trigeminal nerve following loss of central inhibition as a result of taste damage in the chorda tympani and/or the glossopharyngeal nerves.
A study on the relationship between zinc nutrition status and the parameters of growth and physical development was carried out in a group of school children aged 9 to 12 years, selected from a population showing a higher prevalence of "below average" hair zinc concentrations. The growth of the children was assessed as the attained height for age in comparison with the reference population median, whereas the physical development was assessed on the basis of the weight for height and upper arm circumference. Taste acuity was also examined. The results showed an increased prevalence of the "below average" and "low" zinc values in hair and plasma in children of shorter stature and poorer nutrition status. The examination of taste acuity has shown that the occurrence of moderate to severe hypogeusia was statistically significantly associated with the reduction of hair zinc content. The children with moderate and more severe hypogeusia also belonged to the most poorly nourished in the examined population.
After head-injury about 50% of our own patients show combined lesion of the senses of smell and taste. The discussion of the localization of the responsible defect is not closed. The results of a chemosensory test battery indicate that the thalamic nucleus ventroposteromedialis belongs to the damaged area. This nucleus is in contact with the gustatory tract, with mechanoreceptive impulses out of the upper airways, and with olfactory sensations.