ISSN: 2161-0681

Journal of Clinical & Experimental Pathology
Open Access

Our Group organises 3000+ Global Conferenceseries Events every year across USA, Europe & Asia with support from 1000 more scientific Societies and Publishes 700+ Open Access Journals which contains over 50000 eminent personalities, reputed scientists as editorial board members.

Open Access Journals gaining more Readers and Citations
700 Journals and 15,000,000 Readers Each Journal is getting 25,000+ Readers

This Readership is 10 times more when compared to other Subscription Journals (Source: Google Analytics)
  • Research Article   
  • J Clin Exp Pathol, Vol 8(5): 358
  • DOI: 10.4172/2161-0681.1000358

Phantageusia and its Inhibition by Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Robert I Henkin1*, Mona Abdelmeguid1 and Samuel J Potolicchio2
1Center for Molecular Nutrition and Sensory Disorders, The Taste and Smell Clinic, 5125 MacArthur Blvd NW, #20, Washington, DC 20016, USA
2Department of Neurology, Sibley Memorial Hospital, 5255 Loughboro Road NW, Washington, DC 20016, USA
*Corresponding Author : Robert I Henkin, Center for Molecular Nutrition and Sensory Disorders, 5125 MacArthur Blvd. NW, #20, Washington, DC 20016, USA, Tel: 202-364-4180, Email: doc@tasteandsmell.com

Received Date: Nov 28, 2018 / Accepted Date: Dec 05, 2018 / Published Date: Dec 12, 2018

Abstract

Background: Phantageusia is an unpleasant, commonly persistent oral taste occurring without any oral stimulus. It is commonly experienced by patients subsequent to loss of taste acuity (hypogeusia). There is currently no defined treatment. We wished to describe phantageusia and efficacy of its treatment with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS).
Methods: An open label controlled clinical trial of 30 patients with phantageusia of two months to six years duration. Phantageusia was judged subjectively on a 0-100% scale with 100 indicating greatest phantageusia intensity before treatment and changes measured on the same scale after treatment. Patients were initially treated with rTMS and followed after treatment initially for periods of 2-4 months and subsequently for 1-10 years.
Results: rTMS inhibited phantageusia from a mean 58% before treatment to a mean 30% after treatment. Twentyfour of these 30 patients responded with significant phantageusia inhibition with six with total inhibition. Inhibition persisted for months-years without recurrence. These patients were labeled responders. Six of these 30 patients did not respond with significant phantageusia inhibition and were labeled non-responders. Repeated rTMS two or three additional times in some non-responders inhibited phantageusia similar to initial inhibition in responders.
Conclusions: rTMS is an effective method to inhibit phantageusia. Inhibition in 80% of patients persisted for months to years after rTMS suggesting that placebo responses did not contribute significantly to this inhibition. Activation of brain gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and synaptic and cortical plasticity by rTMS may play roles in this inhibition.

Keywords: Phantageusia; Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation; Taste distortion; Sensory hallucinations; Hypogeusia

Citation: Henkin RI, Abdelmeguid M, Potolicchio SJ (2018) Phantageusia and its Inhibition by Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. J Clin Exp Pathol 8: 358. Doi: 10.4172/2161-0681.1000358

Copyright: © 2018 Henkin RI, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Top