{"doi":"10.1002/alr.23264","title":"Pro‐inflammatory markers associated with COVID‐19‐related persistent olfactory dysfunction","abstract":"INTRODUCTION: While localized inflammation has been implicated in the pathophysiology of acute coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) olfactory dysfunction (OD), persistent COVID-19 OD remains poorly understood with limited therapeutics. Our prospective study evaluated olfactory cleft (OC) biomarkers as predictors of persistent OD in mucus sampling. METHODS: COVID-19 subjects with persistent OD >3 months confirmed by psychophysical olfaction tests were compared to COVID-19 subjects with no OD and those with no prior infection. OC mucus samples were evaluated for 13 anti-viral and inflammatory biomarkers. Cohorts were compared using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Mann-Whitney tests with multi-comparison adjustment. Viral RNA was assessed through RT-PCR using the COVID-19 N2 primer. RESULTS: Thirty-five samples were collected (20 COVID persistent OD, 8 COVID no OD, and 7 non-COVID no OD). Significant differences in IFN-λ1 (p = 0.007) and IFN-γ (p = 0.006) expression in OC mucus were found across all three groups, with the highest cytokine concentrations corresponding to COVID OD. IFN-α2 levels were elevated in COVID OD versus no OD (p = 0.026). Mean IFN-γ levels were the highest in COVID OD, but there were higher levels found in COVID no OD compared to non-COVID no OD (p = 0.008). No difference was seen in IL6. No N2 gene expression was detected in all cohorts. CONCLUSION: IFN pathway cytokines were found elevated in the olfactory microenvironment of COVID-19 persistent OD compared to those with no OD and no prior history of COVID-19 infection.","journal":"International Forum of Allergy & Rhinology","year":2023,"id":366043,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":6,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.927,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1122768,"name":"Kwang S. Pak","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1122769,"name":"A R Strøm","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1122770,"name":"Leslie Gomez","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1122267,"name":"Kyubo Kim","orcid":"0000-0001-6093-1294","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":385678,"name":"Taylor A. Doherty","orcid":"0000-0003-3256-0398","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":108274,"name":"Adam S. DeConde","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":326706,"name":"Allen F. Ryan","orcid":"0000-0001-9894-8083","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":108270,"name":"Carol H. Yan","orcid":"0000-0003-1934-4922","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":420695,"name":"Sophie S. Jang","orcid":"0000-0002-8074-5058","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":37,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:14:55.198227Z","pmid":"37676246","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}