Supplemental data

Olfactory impairment and traumatic brain injury in blast-injured combat troops A cohort study Objective: To determine whether a structured and quantitative assessment of differential olfac-tory performance—recognized between a blast-injured traumatic brain injury (TBI) group and a demographically comparable blast-injured control group—can serve as a reliable antecedent marker for preclinical detection of intracranial neurotrauma. Methods:We prospectively and consecutively enrolled 231 polytrauma inpatients, acutely injured from explosions during combat operations in either Afghanistan or Iraq and requiring immediate stateside evacuation and sequential admission to our tertiary care medical center over a 2-year period. This study correlates olfactometric scores with both contemporaneous neuroimaging findings as well as the clinical diagnosis of TBI, tabulates population-specific incidence data, and investigates return of olfactory function. Results: Olfactometric score predicted abnormal neuroimaging significantly better than chanc