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Taste alteration of bitter, sour, sweet, salty and umami taste are common, this alteration starts even before renal replacement therapy (RRT) is onset. Malnutrition is related to taste alterations however there is not information regarding the change of taste perception in incident subjects on RRT. The aim of this study was to evaluate the change of taste perception after RRT onset in incident ESKD subjects.
Prospective cohort in incident patients who initiated RRT between Jan 2022-May 2023; any cause of CKD, age, gender and either on renal transplant or dialysis. Subjects with dental prostheses, oral alterations, and active infection (oral and/or respiratory) were excluded. Ninety-seven patients were included: 49% incident in transplant and 51% incident in dialysis. During the first and last evaluations, a series of questionnaires were applied including renal history, subjective global assessment, pica questionnaire, current medications, and taste perception test. Anthropometric measurements were also taken.
Main results are shown in Table 1.
Figure shows the comparison of taste intensity (A) and taste misdetection (B) before and after RRT onset.
Variable
Incident in transplant
Incident in dialysis
P value
Gender, (%)
Male: Female
Age (years)
Diabetes mellitus (%)
Body mass index kg/m2
Time of follow-up (days)
PICA (%)
Malnutrition (%)
Normal/mild
Moderate/severe
70:30
32.0 (28.0-41.0)
9
25.0 (21.5-28.3)
141 (78-416)
51
68
32
66:34
38.5 (31.0-54.3)
36
25.0 (21.9-30.7)
64 (41-240)
28
0.66
0.007
0.001
0.71
0.07
0.02
0.99
•Intensity of taste increases (sweet and bitter) only in transplant subjects; on the other hand, misdetection improves only in transplant subjects too.
•Dialysis subjects were older, had more diabetic patients and less frequency of pica.
•After quarter-year of RRT onset, sense of taste did not change in dialysis subjects, and is not completely recovered in transplant