Early in the pandemic, when people with COVID-19 began reporting that they lost their sense of smell, Zara Patel, MD, figured as much. A professor of otolaryngology at Stanford Medicine, Patel has, for years, studied loss of smell as a symptom of viral infections.
“Many viruses can cause smell loss, so it wasn’t surprising to us as rhinologists when we found out that COVID-19 causes loss of smell and taste. It was almost expected,” she said. Patel also knew that the condition could last a while and that few effective treatments were available.
According to a 2022 survey by Patel and colleagues, about 15% of people who experienced smell loss from COVID-19 continued to have problems six months later. That’s roughly 9 million people in the U.S., and the number is growing. Many who report loss of smell also report loss of taste because smell is such a major component of how we experience food.
Now Patel’s team has tested a new treatment for long-term, COVID-19-related smell loss using injections of platelet-rich plasma derived from a patient’s own blood. In a trial of 26 participants, those who received the treatment were 12.5 times more likely to improve than patients who received placebo injections.
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Zara Patel, MD, is the Director of Endoscopic Skull Base Surgery and a Professor of Otolaryngology at Stanford Medicine. She treats patients with a wide variety of rhinologic complaints, including chronic sinus infection or inflammation, sinus disease that has failed medical therapy, sinus disease that has failed prior surgical therapy, cerebrospinal fluid leaks, benign and and malignant sinus and skull base tumors, as well as olfactory disorders.
Lisa Kim is Senior Manager of Media Relations for Stanford Medicine and Stanford Health Care. Lisa has a deep background in journalism, as she is an Emmy Award-winning journalist who has covered stories on both the national and local levels.
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