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BackgroundHyposmia is an early feature in neurodegenerative diseases, most notably Parkinson's disease (PD). Using abbreviated smell tests could provide a cost-effective means for large-scale hyposmia screening. It is unclear whether short smell tests can effectively detect hyposmia in patient populations.ObjectivesTo test the ability of short smell combinations to "prescreen" for probable hyposmia in people with PD and target administration of more extensive tests, such as the University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test.MethodsWe assessed the screening performance of a short 4-smell combination previously derived from use of the 40-item University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test in healthy older people and its ability to detect hyposmia in a large cohort of PD patients.ResultsThe novel 4-smell combination included menthol, clove, onion, and orange and had a sensitivity of 87.1% (95% confidence interval, 84.9%-89.2%) and specificity of 69.7% (63.3%-75.5%) for detecting hyposmia in patients with PD. A different (also novel) 4-item combination developed using a data-driven approach in PD patients only achieved 81.3% (78.2%-84.4%) sensitivity for equivalent specificity.ConclusionsA short 4-smell combination derived from a healthy population demonstrated high sensitivity to detect those with hyposmia and PD.

Original publication

DOI

10.1002/mdc3.12928

Type

Journal article

Journal

Movement disorders clinical practice

Publication Date

05/2020

Volume

7

Pages

394 - 398

Addresses

Preventive Neurology Unit, Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London London United Kingdom.