{"doi":"10.1002/ohn.530","title":"Stellate Ganglion Block for the Treatment of COVID‐19‐Induced Olfactory Dysfunction: A Prospective Pilot Study","abstract":"OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to explore the safety and feasibility of stellate ganglion blocks (SGBs) to treat persistent COVID-19-induced olfactory dysfunction (OD). Secondarily, the goal was to determine effect sizes to plan a future randomized clinical trial. STUDY DESIGN: Prospective case series. SETTING: Quaternary Care Academic Medical Center. METHODS: In this single-arm pilot trial, adult participants with a COVID-19 diagnosis ≥ 12 months prior to enrollment with OD underwent bilateral SGBs. Subjects were followed for 1 month after completion of SGB. The primary outcome measure was the change in the Clinical Global Impression-Improvement Scale for smell loss. Secondary outcome measures included changes in the University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT) and Olfactory Dysfunction Outcomes Rating (ODOR). RESULTS: Twenty participants were enrolled with a mean (SD) age of 46 (11) years and a mean (SD) duration of OD of 21 (5) months. At 1 month, 10 (50%) participants experienced at least slight subjective improvement in their OD, 11 (55%) attained a clinically meaningful improvement in smell identification using the UPSIT, and 7 (35%) achieved a clinically meaningful improvement in olfactory-specific quality of life (QoL) measured by the ODOR. The median difference between UPSIT scores at baseline and 1 month was 6 (95% confidence interval: 3-11), exceeding the minimal clinically important difference of 4. There were no serious adverse events. CONCLUSION: Sequential SGBs for COVID-19-associated OD were safe and associated with modest improvements in subjective olfaction, odor identification, and olfactory-specific QoL. A placebo-controlled trial is warranted to determine the efficacy of SGBs for COVID-19-associated OD.","journal":"Otolaryngology","year":2023,"id":340217,"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":16,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.8739,"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":1074578,"name":"Brevin Miller","orcid":"0000-0002-0085-7958","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":231284,"name":"Dorina Kallogjeri","orcid":"0000-0001-5365-0988","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":231285,"name":"Jay F. Piccirillo","orcid":"0000-0002-4062-1747","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1075236,"name":"Sara Kukuljan","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":348697,"name":"Lauren T. Roland","orcid":"0000-0003-2036-7611","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":390567,"name":"John S. Schneider","orcid":"0000-0002-3081-4377","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1074579,"name":"Lara W. Crock","orcid":"0000-0003-4913-9719","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":932959,"name":"Nyssa Fox Farrell","orcid":"0000-0003-1510-4008","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":495369,"name":"Andrew M. Peterson","orcid":"0000-0001-9965-1572","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":17,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:10:54.145367Z","pmid":"37750244","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":[]}