New surgery restores smell for long Covid sufferers

Doctors in London have successfully restored a sense of smell and taste in patients who lost it due to long Covid with pioneering surgery that expands their nasal airways to kickstart their recovery.

- By Andrew Gregory

Most patients diagnosed with Covid-19 recover fully. But the infectious disease can lead to serious long-term effects. About six in every 100 people who get Covid develop long Covid, with millions of people affected globally, according to the World Health Organization. Losing a sense of smell and taste are among more than 200 different symptoms reported by people with long Covid.

Now surgeons at University College London hospitals NHS foundation trust have cured a dozen patients who suffered a profound loss of smell after a Covid infection. All had experienced the problem for more than two years and other treatments, such as smell training and corticosteroids, had failed.

In a study to find new ways to resolve the issue, surgeons tried functional septorhinoplasty (fSRP), a technique which is used to correct any deviation of the nasal septum, increasing the size of nasal passageways.