Olfactory screening test in 115 Sardinian subjects

Introduction: Olfactory function plays important role in human life and a decrease in olfaction induces daily life problems especially in food intake (1). The main components of olfactory function are odor threshold (OT), odor identification (OI) and odor discrimination (OD) (2). The most important causes of olfactory deficits are infections of upper respiratory tract, sinonasal diseases, head trauma and allergic rhinitis. Aim of this study is to analyze olfactory performance, assessed by “Sniffin’ Sticks” test, in Sardinian subjects. Materials and methods: Olfactory function was performed by the “Sniffin’ Sticks” test for OT, OI and OD in 115 participants (85 females and 30 males, mean age was 31.31±10.62). Results: The participants were assigned into 3 groups: normosmics, hyposmics and hyperosmics, according to Hummel et al. (2). Our results indicate that 88 subjects are normosmics, 20 hyposmics and 7 hyperosmics. Normosmics mean values were 8.52±1.94, 13.39±1.41 and 12.50±1.74 for OT, OI and OD, respectively. Hyposmics mean values were 5.97±1.37, 11.05±1.43 and 9.54±2.09, while hyperosmics mean values were 15.98±0.04, 13.57±1.61 and 13.57±1.40 for OT, OI and OD, respectively. Mean values of threshold, identification and discrimination (TDI) score, which is the sum of these three test, was significantly different in hyposmics and hyperosmics respect to normosmics (p<0.0001 and p<0.001, respectively). Discussion: Our results show the presence of normosmic, hyposmic and hyperosmic subjects in a selected sample of Sardinian people, similarly to data obtained in other countries (2,3).