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Pathophysiological mechanisms of alterations of smell and taste in covid-19 patients

Abstract:

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, COVID 19, has generated global chaos unprecedented in the history of medicine in the past two years. The clinical manifestations reported at the beginning of the disease were fever, cough, asthenia, dyspnoea, odynophagia, headache, arthromyalgia and diarrhea, later the olfactory and taste sensory disorders were added. There are still numerous enigmas, one of them is the objective of this review: to delve into the mechanisms that explain the pathophysiology of anosmia and ageusia. Information published in the last year was reviewed, using the Scopus database, for the keywords anosmia, ageusia, pathophysiology and COVID 19. The scientific community is of the opinion that olfactory dysfunction is potentially an early symptom of COVID-19, the infection of which is towards healing, without gravity, but increases the risk of contagion when they are not isolated in a timely manner. The mechanisms of these symptoms are still not fully understood. The hypothesis is related to the direct affectation of the virus on the olfactory and gustatory epithelium, basically of the support cells, not neuronal, causing chemo-sensory dysfunctions of smell and taste; It is also a possible route of entry to the nervous system, causing varied injuries.