February 2010

Sensory Loss Etiology Related to Parotid Saliva Cyclic Nucleotides

We have previously shown that parotid saliva levels of cAMP and cGMP are lower in patients with taste and smell dysfunction than in normal subjects. We have also shown that as smell loss severity increases parotid saliva levels of cAMP and cGMP decrease proportionately.

To learn more details about these relationships we related parotid saliva levels of cAMP and cGMP in these patients to etiology (cause) of their sensory loss.

Whereas mean levels of both saliva cAMP and cGMP in the hyposmic patients were below normal upon classification by etiology differences not previously revealed were discovered. Some patient groups exhibited very low levels of cyclic nucleotides whereas others did not.

Low levels of cAMP and cGMP were found among patients with hypogeusia (taste acuity loss) whereas higher levels were found among patients with aliageusia (taste distortions in the presence of food or drink).

While treatment with phosphodiesterase (PDE) inhibitors increased parotid saliva cAMP and cGMP in patients with low levels of these cyclic nucleotides and thereby corrected their taste and smell dysfunction some patients did not respond to this treatment despite having low parotid saliva levels of these cyclic nucleotides. By identifying these biochemical abnormalities among the various etiological categories it may be possible to define with more accuracy which patients may benefit from this treatment.

This work has been submitted in 2010 for publication in Metabolism.