Patients with Long Covid regain sense of smell and taste with pioneering surgery

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.

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 (UCLH) have cured a dozen patients, each of whom had 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 aiming to find new ways to resolve the issue, surgeons tried a technique called functional septorhinoplasty (fSRP), which is typically used to correct any deviation of the nasal septum, increasing the size of nasal passageways.

This boosts airflow into the olfactory region, at the roof of the nasal cavity, which controls smell. Doctors said the surgery enabled an increased amount of odorants – chemical compounds that have a smell – to reach the roof of the nose, where sense of smell is located.

They believe that increasing the delivery of odorants to this area “kickstarts” smell recovery in patients who have lost their sense of smell to Long Covid.

Prof Peter Andrews, a senior consultant surgeon in rhinology and facial plastic surgery who led the research, said surgery increased the airway by about 30%, so airflow also increased by about 30%.

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Source: The Guardian, 7 March 2025