University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test: Application to Turkish population

Aim: University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT) is an odor identification test for evaluation of olfactory function. The aim of this study was to investigate whether UPSIT clinical olfactory function test is suitable to assess olfactory function in Turkish population.Materials and Methods: Fifty healthy Turkish volunteers [(22 males (44 %), 28 females (56 %)] with ages ranging from 20 to 49 were included in the study. UPSIT and CCCRC tests were carried out for each individual separately.Results: Mean CCCRC test score of 50 volunteers was 6.33 ± 0.588 out of 7. Volunteers correctly identified 21.38±4.68 odors out of 40 in UPSIT test. The odors identified best were respectively onion (98 %), pine (92 %), mint (90 %), gasoline (88 %) and banana (80 %). The least identified odors were dill pickle (12 %), cherry (18 %) and chocolate (18 %). Root beer (32 %) and cheddar cheese (34 %) were among the odors least identified correctly. Although scores 35 to 40 are evaluated as normosmia, healthy Turkish volunteers were able to identify correctly 21/40 odors which was diagnosed as `severe microsmia? based on normative American percentile values.Conclusions: UPSIT test is inadequate, as is, for evaluation of olfactory function in Turkish population. Our results suggest that UPSIT test contains odors that are unfamiliar to Turkish population.Keywords: Smell, Smell Test, Olfactory Functions