Mechanical obstruction of the olfactory cleft reveals differences between orthonasal and retronasal olfactory functions

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

Following up on recent observations in patients with nasal polyposis (NP), the present study aimed to investigate whether a mechanical obstruction of the anterior olfactory cleft (OC) would produce differential effects on orthonasal and retronasal olfactory functions. To this end, we studied 33 healthy subjects in a randomized trial. Sponges with high content of saline were either placed in the OC or on the respiratory epithelium, such that this was blinded to both subject and observer. The results indicated that orthonasal (P = 0.04) but not retronasal (P = 0.15) olfactory identification ability was lower when the OC was blocked. This confirms the idea that differences between orthonasal and retronasal olfactory functions, as observed in NP patients, are, at least to some degree, due to mechanical obstruction of the anterior portion of the OC. The present data also suggest that mechanical obstruction is a means to induce reversible hyposmia void of side effects which can be performed in a blinded fashion. This might become a valuable model of hyposmia for future investigations.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)27-31
Number of pages5
JournalChemical senses
Volume31
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2006
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

PubMed 16306318
Scopus 30344458819
ORCID /0000-0001-9713-0183/work/146645648

Keywords

Keywords

  • Sniffin' Sticks, Hyposmia model, Interaction, Olfaction, Retronasal, Sponge

Library keywords