Table 2.
Effects of botulinum toxin on olfactory and gustatory functioning in subjects with blepharospasm compared to healthy controls
| BSP subjects | Healthy controls | p value | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before BoNT | With BoNT | 1. exam | 2. Exam | ||
| Number of subjects | 8 | 8 | |||
| Age, years | 69.7 ± 5.4 | 66.6 ± 7.3 | |||
| Sex (female/male/intersex) | 5/3/0 | 6/2/0 | |||
| Education, years | 10.1 ± 2.0 | 10.2 ± 1.9 | |||
| Disease duration, years | 10.6 ± 8.3 | – | |||
| ΔWEIGHT cotton swabs, g | 2.0 ± 1.2 | 2.2 ± 1.5 | 1.7 ± 1.4 | 1.5 ± 1.1 | 0.4 |
| Composite olfactory score | 32.6 ± 3.4 | 32.5 ± 3.9 | 35.9 ± 4.8 | 35.7 ± 3.7 | 0.9 |
| Odor threshold | 6.5 ± 2.1 | 6.8 ± 1.9 | 8.1 ± 1.3 | 8.0 ± 1.4 | 0.2 |
| Odor discrimination | 12.9 ± 1.6 | 12.4 ± 1.9 | 13.8 ± 1.9 | 13.6 ± 1.4 | 0.5 |
| Odor identification | 13.3 ± 1.2 | 13.3 ± 1.5 | 14.0 ± 2.1 | 14.1 ± 1.6 | 0.7 |
| Composite gustatory score | 10.9 ± 2.7 | 11.4 ± 2.9 | 11.1 ± 2.9 | 12.9 ± 1.6 | 0.3 |
| JRS, severity | 2.3 ± 0.5 | 3.5 ± 1.5 | |||
| JRS, frequency | 2.9 ± 0.8 | 3.5 ± 1.5 | |||
| Global assessment | + 2.3 ± 0.9 | ||||
Values are mean ± standard deviation; BSP, blepharospasm; BoNT, botulinum toxin; before BoNT, assessment just before the next BoNT injections; after BoNT, assessment 4 weeks after BoNT injections; p value as assessed with exact Mann–Whitney U test to compare the difference between before BoNT injections and 4 weeks thereafter in the BSP subjects with the difference between the first and the second assessment of the healthy controls; ΔWeight cotton swabs, difference of weight of two cotton swabs before and after the study participants kept them in their check pouch for 1 min. JRS, Jankovic Rating Scale (Jankovic and Orman 1987); Global Assessment, self-assessment of the effect of BoNT on BSP by the BSP subjects comparing the status 4 weeks after the last BoNT injections with the status before the BoNT injections (Defazio et al. 2015)