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Effect of olfactory bulb atrophy on the success of olfactory training

  • Rhinology
  • Published:
European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

To evaluate the success of olfactory training in patients with olfactory loss and olfactory bulb (OB) atrophy detected on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and other characteristics.

Methods

This study included 48 patients with olfactory loss who underwent a nasal endoscopic examination and MRI before olfactory training. The Korean Version of the Sniffin’ Sticks Test was performed before and after training. The olfactory training success was defined as an improvement of more than 6 points in the Threshold-Discrimination-Identification (TDI) score. Patient characteristics and OB atrophy pre-training were compared between successful and unsuccessful groups.

Results

The etiology of olfactory loss included respiratory viral infection in 30 (62.5%), trauma in 10 (20.8%), and idiopathic loss in 8 (16.7%) patients. Twenty-three (47.9%) of 48 patients exhibited successful olfactory training. Etiology, age, gender, and symptom duration were not different between unsuccessful and successful groups. Pre-training discrimination, identification, and TDI scores were significantly different between unsuccessful and successful groups (P < 0.05). Success rate of patients with bilateral OB atrophy was significantly lower than that of patients with unilateral OB atrophy and normal morphology (P = 0.006). OB height was significantly lower in the unsuccessful group than in the successful group (P < 0.05). Bilateral OB atrophy was an independent risk factor for failure of olfactory training according to the multivariate analysis.

Conclusion

Olfactory loss patients with bilateral OB atrophy may not be able to improve olfactory function after olfactory training.

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Author information

Author notes

  1. Ja Yoon Ku and Min Kyoung Lee authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, 88 Olympic-ro 43-gil, Songpa-gu, 05505, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Ja Yoon Ku & Ji Heui Kim

  2. Department of Radiology, Yeouido St. Mary’s Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Min Kyoung Lee

  3. Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Samsung Changwon Hospital, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Changwon, Republic of Korea

    Woo Ri Choi

  4. Department of Radiology and Research Institute of Radiology, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Jeong Hyun Lee

Authors
  1. Ja Yoon Ku
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  2. Min Kyoung Lee
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study’s conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Ja Yoon Ku, Min Kyoung Lee, and Ji Heui Kim. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Ja Yoon Ku and Min Kyoung Lee and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ji Heui Kim.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

This study was approved by the institutional review board of the Asan Medical Center.

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Ku, J.Y., Lee, M.K., Choi, W.R. et al. Effect of olfactory bulb atrophy on the success of olfactory training. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol 279, 1383–1389 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-021-06917-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-021-06917-z

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