Tele-Taste: Development of a taste test for clinical practice

Taste is imporant for proper nutrition and emotional well-being. Main traditional reasons for taste disorders are craniocerebral injury, infection of the upper respiratory tract, exposition to toxic substances, iatrogenic causes (e.g. radiation, middle ear surgery, tonsillectomy, dental surgery), diabetes, side effects of medication and burning mouth syndrome, and the overall prevalence in the general population is 5%. However, today the cases of gustatory impairment are soaring: it became clear that 45% or more of COVID-19 patients experience taste loss or taste impairment. The number of COVID-19 cases continuously rising, with over 36M cases worldwide, over 300K in Germany and nearing 300K in Israel (as of October 8th), the need for a standardized, cheap and validated gustatory test is immense. Such a tool is needed for COVID-19 Screening, for discriminating between COVID-19 related taste impairments from other conditions, and for monitoring taste recovery and effects of treatments. The present project aims to develop such a test for the simple, efficient and inexpensive assessment of taste dysfunction.