Traumatic Dysgeusia, an Unusual Complication of Facial Trauma: A Case Report

Abstract

The chemical senses of taste and smell are important to human life, because they play an important role in detecting potential environmental hazards. Humans can identify countless different flavors by the simultaneous perception of taste and smell. Reports of sensory loss after craniocerebral trauma began to appear in the medical literature in the middle 1800s. Dysgeusia associated with head injuries is rare and its reported incidence is 0.4 to 0.5%. This report describes the clinical case of a 32-year-old man with Le Fort I and III fractures treated with surgical reduction and fixation. The patient presented with dysgeusia after slight improvement of his preoperative anosmia. The prognosis is favorable and the treatment is prospective.