Evidence map›Paper›PMID 37697932›Full record

ArticleThe Journal of infectious diseases2024

An Explanation for Reports of Increased Prevalence of Olfactory Dysfunction With Omicron: Asymptomatic Infections.

Christopher S von Bartheld, Lingchen Wang

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in The Journal of infectious diseases, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Christopher S von BartheldDepartment of Physiology and Cell Biology, University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine, Reno, Nevada, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-2716-6601
Lingchen WangSchool of Public Health, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada, USA.

Funding

Cell Biology of Signaling across MembranesP20GM103554 · NIGMS · UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA RENO · PI VON BARTHELD, CHRISTOPHER S · 2012 to 2016
$8.0M
NIGMS NIH HHS P20 GM103554
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The prevalence of olfactory dysfunction (OD) in people infected with the Omicron variant is substantially reduced compared with previous variants. However, 4 recent studies reported a greatly increased prevalence of OD with Omicron. We provide a likely explanation for these outlier studies and reveal a major methodological flaw. When the proportion of asymptomatic infections is large, studies on the prevalence of OD will examine and report predominantly on nonrepresentative cohorts, those with symptomatic subjects, thereby artificially inflating the prevalence of OD by up to 10-fold. Estimation of the true OD prevalence requires representative cohorts that include relevant fractions of asymptomatic cases.

Indexed as

Asymptomatic InfectionsOlfaction DisordersHumansPrevalenceasymptomatic casesCOVID-19meta-analysisSARS-CoV-2systematic review

Identifiers

PMID37697932
PMCPMC11032248

What Socratic holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.