Performance of a cost-effective olfactory test to evaluate hyposmia in Parkinson's disease patients.

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BackgroundParkinson's disease (PD) causes motor and non-motor symptoms such as hyposmia, which is evaluated through olfactory tests in the clinical practice.ObjectiveTo assess the feasibility of using the modified Connecticut Chemosensory Clinical Research Center (mCCCRC) olfactory test and to compare its performance with the Sniffin' Sticks-12 (SS-12, Burghart Messtechnik GmbH, Wedel, Germany) test.MethodsA transversal case-control study in which the patients were divided into the PD group (PDG) and the control group (CG). The cost and difficulty in handling substances to produce the mCCCRC test kits were evaluated. Sociodemographic characteristics, smoking habits, past coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections, self-perception of odor sense, and cognition through the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) were also evaluated. The PDG was scored by part III of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS-III) and the Hoehn and Yahr Scale (H&Y) scale. Correlations were assessed through the Spearman rank correlation coefficient test (ρ, or rho).ResultsThe mCCCRC test was easily manufactured and handled at a cost ten times lower compared with the SS-12. The groups (PDG: n = 34; CG: n = 38) were similar in terms of age, sex, level of schooling, smoking habits, and history of COVID-19. The tests results showed moderate correlation (rho = 0.65; p p p = 0.0029). The results of the PDG group showed no correlation with olfactory results and motor performance or disease duration. The self-perception of hyposmia was low in both groups.ConclusionThe mCCCRC is an easy-to-apply and inexpensive method that demonstrated a similar performance to that of the SS-12 in evaluating olfaction in PD patients and healthy controls.

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