A recent study revealed the reasons for the loss of smell in the case of a long Covid paving the way for therapeutic options.
Published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, an American study reports that long-term anosmia (smell disorder) after Covid-19 infection could be the result of inflammation in the tissue of the nose where the nerve cells of smell are located. The researchers also highlighted the loss of olfactory neurons in the nose compared to the control group.
And the study to clarify, in this process, the role of T lymphocytes whose job is, usually, to attack foreign particles in order to help the body fight a virus. “It almost looks like some sort of autoimmune-like process in the nose,” said Bradley Goldstein, one of the study’s lead authors.
15 million patients
Less frequent since the appearance of the original strain of Omicron, the loss of smell is one of the main symptoms of Covid-19, which came back in force in the spring of 2022 with the appearance of the BA.5 sub-variants and the following… An estimated 15 million patients suffer from persistent loss of smell.
If the momentary loss of smell seems to be relatively well explained, the origin of the persistent forms of anosmia is not always very clear.
In this new study, the researchers used olfactory epithelium biopsy samples from nine patients with persistent anosmia in the setting of long Covid. The samples were subjected to various very extensive tests, but their limited number is the main limitation of this study.
New therapeutic strategies
If the result is a little technical, it allows researchers to direct solutions to cure persistent anosmia. Thus, the discoveries made offer potential for the development of therapeutic options that can be administered topically directly into the nose.
Thus, the authors of the study suggest “potential new therapeutic strategies” such as “the selective blocking of local pro-inflammatory immune cells or the direct inhibition of specific signaling nodes”.
And the researchers call for “further studies testing therapeutics in animal and human models, and longer follow-up of patients with olfactory dysfunction” to provide vital information that would provide relief to millions of sufferers across the world. the world. Indeed, it is now accepted that up to 5% of Covid survivors experience long-term loss of smell.