An image-guided minimally invasive procedure may assist people with long-term Covid -19 regain their sense of smell, according to research presented at the Radiological Society of North America's (RSNA) annual meeting. Recent research indicates that the condition still affects as many as 60% of Covid-19 patients. The sensations often persist for months or even years, even when the patients' sense of smell eventually returns.
Lead author of the study, Adam C Zoga, MD, MBA, professor of musculoskeletal radiology at Jefferson Health in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, said, “Post-Covid parosmia is common and increasingly recognised. Patients can develop a distaste for foods and drinks they used to enjoy.” The distorted sense of smell can also affect smell perception, and some patients may suffer from phantosmia, a condition that causes people to detect smells that aren’t in their environment.
The researchers stimulated the regional autonomic nerve system by directly injecting anaesthetic into the stellate ganglion on one side of the neck, a procedure known as a stellate ganglion block. Numerous ailments, such as cluster headaches, phantom limb pain, Meniere's and Raynaud's syndromes, angina, and cardiac arrhythmia, have been treated with it, albeit with differing degrees of success.
The minimally invasive procedure takes less than 10 minutes, and no sedation or intravenous analgesia is necessary. For the study, 54 patients were referred by an ear, nose and throat specialist after at least six months of post-Covid parosmia resistant to pharmaceutical and topical therapies.
