The Most Updated Diagnostic Tests in Olfactory Assessment; a Review

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Background: People are usually faced with rhinological disorders such as Hyposmia and Anosmia. There are currently subjective and objective tests to evaluate olfactory sense. Subjective and screening tests as well as measuring olfactory sense threshold have been commonly used to assess Hyposmia and Anosmia. Identification and discrimination tests have been qualitative methods to assess olfactory sense. Objective methods have been predominantly used in research field; sometimes, they are used for lawful cases as the following: Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT), Functional Positron Emission Tomography (FPET), Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI), and olfactory stimulated potential. Materials and methods: In the current study, the articles of databases such as Springer, PubMed, and Google published from 1990 to 2017 were studied. The key words were evaluating olfactory sense, olfactory sense, olfactory test, Anosmia, and screening olfactory tests. Discussion: Measuring and evaluating olfactory sense helped in understanding a comprehensive spectrum of nasal disorders’ impacts. This issue is important particularly before rhinological surgeries, since disregarding olfactory disorder in the patients might lead to increased medical complains and accusing physicians of the surgeries which caused olfactory dysfunction. There are currently various olfactory screening tests, which could be used to evaluate the olfactory sense function.