Effectiveness and safety of PRP on persistent olfactory dysfunction related to COVID-19: towards a new therapeutic hope

Olfactory dysfunction (OD) is a well know symptom of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), accounting for 48 to 85% of patients. In 1 to 10% of cases, patients develop a chronic olfactory dysfunction (COD,) lasting more than 6 months. Recently, platelet-rich plasma (PRP) was used in patients with non-COVID-19 COD and authors reported encouraging results. In the present study, we investigated the usefulness and safety of PRP injection in 56 patients with COVID-19 COD.

Our results showed that PRP in the olfactory cleft can increase the olfactory threshold one month after the injection. Moreover, our results suggest that timing of treatment may be an important factor and that PRP is a safe treatment because no adverse effects were reported throughout the study