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Olfactory dysfunction in patients with cluster headache

  • Rhinology
  • Published:
European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Objective

Cluster headache (CH) is a primary headache characterized by strictly unilateral, short-lasting severe headache attacks accompanied by at least one ipsilateral autonomic symptom. Our study aimed to determine whether CH patients had olfactory dysfunction and to correlate it with clinical characteristics.

Materials and methods

Twenty patients and 57 healthy volunteers were included in the study. All participants were examined in the otorhinolaryngology outpatient clinics to exclude other clinical problems causing olfactory dysfunction. The Sniffin’ Sticks test was performed, and threshold (T), discrimination (D), identification (I) scores, and TDI global olfactory score were evaluated.

Results

The CH patients had significantly lower threshold scores than healthy controls (6.9 ± 1.70 vs. 7.8 ± 1.08, p = 0.007). The mean threshold scores of CH patients during in-bout (n = 9) were significantly lower than CH patients during out-of-bout (n = 11) in subgroup analysis (5.9 ± 1.16 vs. 7.6 ± 1.76, p = 0.038). CH patients with left-sided headache had significantly lower discrimination scores compared to CH patients with right-sided headache (12.8 ± 1.24 vs. 14.4 ± 1.51, p = 0.03).

Conclusion

There is marked impairment in olfactory function in CH patients compared to healthy controls.

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Acknowledgement

We would like to thank all participants.

Funding

This work was supported by the Istanbul University Scientific Research Fund (grant number BAP-TTU-2016-21774).

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Author notes

  1. Bedia Samancı and Erdi Şahin contributed equally.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, Istanbul Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Bedia Samancı, Erdi Şahin, Mine Sezgin, Serkan Emekli, Elif Kocasoy Orhan & Betül Baykan

  2. Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Istanbul Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Cömert Şen & Kadir Serkan Orhan

  3. Neurosurgery Clinic, Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Yavuz Samancı

  4. Department of Neuroscience, Institute of Experimental Medicine, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Yavuz Samancı

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  1. Bedia Samancı
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Correspondence to Erdi Şahin.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Samancı, B., Şahin, E., Şen, C. et al. Olfactory dysfunction in patients with cluster headache. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol 278, 4361–4365 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-021-06738-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-021-06738-0

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