Long-Term Impacts of COVID-19 on Multiple Sensory Systems

Sunday, September 29, 2024

1:12 PM – 1:18 PM EDT

Location: MBCC, 206

Disclosure(s):

Ahmad O. Odeh, BS:

faculty for this accredited education activity has no relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.

Veronica L. Formanek, BS:

faculty for this accredited education activity has no relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.

Megan J. Kobel, AuD, PhD:

faculty for this accredited education activity has no relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.

Aaron C. Moberly, MD:

faculty for this accredited education activity has no relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.

Introduction: COVID-19 may have significant neurotropic impacts on sensory functions. This ongoing study aims to capture the long-term impact of post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC) on broad sensory systems.

Methods: We tested, for 1) olfaction: 9-Item NIH Toolbox odor identification, detection threshold to phenyl-ethyl alcohol (PEA), and retro nasal flavor identification (candy); 2) taste: modified NIH toolbox; 3) chemesthesis: menthol lateralization thresholds; 4) hearing: standard pure tone audiometry, otoacoustic emissions testing (OAE) and speech-in-noise (SiN) recognition; 5) vestibular: video head impulse testing (vHIT), Subjective Visual Vertical (SVV), and modified Romberg balance test on force plate.

Results: Preliminary analysis included 19 patients (age 29-74 years old, median 51), who contracted COVID-19 from 3/15/2020-1/12/2023, with symptoms persisting from 3 to 45 months (median = 23.5 months). Overall, subjects self-reported a high and overlapping incidents of multisensory losses: smell (79%), taste (58%), and vestibular (50%) that differ from objective testing. Only 10.5% of subjects had olfactory losses per NIH toolbox, 36.8% showed losses on retronasal candy tests and 5.3% showed losses on NIH taste test. Across all subjects, none showed abnormalities on SVV or vHIT, and 2/16 failed balance tests.

Conclusions: These discrepancies varied across sensory modalities. Particularly for hearing, fewer patients (3/19) reported losses, yet all losses were confirmed with objective hearing tests with one additional patient having a SiN deficit. While preliminary, our findings suggested potential different mechanisms of dysfunctions (peripheral vs central) across different sensory modalities or a lack of sensitivity of some tests for this particular population, which awaits further investigations with a larger sample.

Presenting Author(s)

Ahmad O. Odeh, BS

Medical Student
Saint Louis University School of Medicine
Columbus, OH, United States

Disclosure(s):
faculty for this accredited education activity has no relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.

Co-Author(s)

Veronica L. Formanek, BS

Clinical Research Assistant
Department of Otolaryngology, Head&Neck Surgery, the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
Bolingbrook, IL, United States

Disclosure(s):
faculty for this accredited education activity has no relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.
MK

Megan J. Kobel, AuD, PhD

Assistant Professor
University of Arizona, Department of Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences
Tucson, AZ, United States

Disclosure(s):
faculty for this accredited education activity has no relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.
JL

Jessica H. Lewis, AuD

Audiologist
The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH, United States

Disclosure information not submitted.

Senior Author(s)

Aaron C. Moberly, MD

Associate Professor of Otolaryngology
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Nashville, TN, United States

Disclosure(s):
faculty for this accredited education activity has no relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.
DM

Dan M. Merfeld, PhD

Professor
Department of Otolaryngology, Head&Neck Surgery, the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
Columbus, OH, United States

Disclosure information not submitted.
CS

Christopher Simons, PhD

Department of Food Science and Technology, the Ohio State University, United States

Disclosure information not submitted.
Kai Zhao, PhD

Associate Professor
Department of Otolaryngology, The Ohio State University College of Medicine
Columbus, OH, United States

Disclosure information not submitted.