Computerized tomography studies on schizophrenic diseases

Earlier clinical pneumoencephalographic studies showed a subgroup of schizophrenics that have small and dysplastic cerebral ventricles as well as a subgroup with a "pure defect", i.e., a slight internal brain atrophy. In echoencephalograms of pure and mixed residual schizophrenic syndrome patients, a significantly higher average transverse diameter of the third ventricle was demonstrated compared to that in patients with complete remissions. Correlations cannot be expected between certain groups of disease, e.g., epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, or schizophrenia on the whole, and pneumoencephalographic (PEG) and CT findings. Only schizophrenics with distinct signs of pure defect that had persisted for at least 3 years revealed deviations from normal by CT and PEG, but those with irreversible fixed deformations of personality structure ("Strukturverformungen" [9,10]) did not. In patients who were 50 years of age or less with psychic reactive and psychopathic personality disorders, CT showed an average third ventricle diameter of 4.2 mm (range 2-6 mm). Of 117 schizophrenics (average age 35.5 years), only 28% revealed pathological CT changes. However, of 36 schizophrenics with pure residual syndromes 69% showed pathological CT findings that always concerned the third ventricle, rarely the lateral ventricles, and in no case the cortex. The average transverse diameter of the third ventricle in this subgroup with pure defect was 7.6 mm, as compared to 4.6 mm in the subgroup of schizophrenics with complete remission. There was no increase in size with increasing years until the 50th year in schizophrenics, as well as in the control group of variations of psychic being (neuroses and psychopathic personality disorders).