[On the use of computer tomography (CT) in clinical psychiatry (author's transl)]

220 hospitalized psychiatric patients were examined by computerized tomography (CT) mostly to exclude organic brain dammage. A third of the material proved to be within the normal range, when also slight cortical and subcortical atrophies are considered to be abnormal. Pronounced cerebral atrophy was found in 26.8% of the cases, 5% revealed other significant lesions. CT is a very promissing help in distinguishing vascular from purely degenerative processes. Chronic alcoholism showed an amount of 67% cortical atrophies of all degrees. Endogenic psychoses on the other side failed to demonstrate characteristic results. Many of possible unspecific pathogenetic factors seem to play an important role in this and other disease processes. CT as an almost non-invasive method may be repeated in dubious cases.