Psychiatry and Clinical Psychopharmacology

Psychopharmacology Olfactory reference syndrome treated with escitalopram: a case report

Psychiatry and Clinical Psychopharmacology 2013; 23: Supplement S251-S252
Read: 405 Published: 17 March 2021

Olfactory reference syndrome (ORS) is a clinical situation that patients are very anxious about emitting body odors that may be offensive for other people. This situation causes heavy distress and depression and suicides can be seen as an outcome. Olfactory reference syndrome is treated with antipsychotics, antidepressants or combinations of them. Some reported cases are treated with antidepressants only and some of them noted successful outcomes with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI). This syndrome does not have its own unaffiliated diagnostic classification criterion yet. In this paper, we aimed to report a case with ORS, which we treated with escitalopram and within the framework of this case we aimed to discuss the place of ORS in the classification systems. A 22-year-old single female, admitted to the psychiatry department with a gastroenterology consultation, had a preoccupation of a foul body odor emanated from her anal region. She said that foul odor resembled the odor of colon gas or faeces and started to think that the odor emanated from her body. As a result of this situation she was very anxious and depressive. The patient was treated with escitalopram 10 mg daily. She showed a gradual reduction in her preoccupations about foul odors and depressive symptoms. The patient was treated with escitalopram for twelve months to remission. Then, we stopped the pharmacotherapy. The follow up continued for one more year without medication. Symptoms remained significantly improved throughout this time. This case report of ORS presented here can be used as a basis for a discussion of the place of this syndrome in the classification systems. We discussed whether ORS is a kind of delusional disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, social phobia, body dismorphic disorder or another mental disorder. In conclusion, we see that ORS patients have similar features with four disorders that we discussed above. Although they have similar features, the disorders differentiate on same basic features. So ORS seems to be a different disorder and we think that it must be classified in an independent category. Such categorization may be helpful in developing further research on etiology, treatment and outcomes of ORS.

EISSN 2475-0581