[Computerized tomography in the diagnosis of organic brain lesions in patients with schizophrenia]

The authors retrospectively analyse CT data obtained in examinations of 1745 patients divided into three groups. Of these, 832 were male and 913 female patients. Group 1 consisted of 721 patients with schizophrenia, group 2 (reference) consisted of 855 mentally normal subjects directed to computer tomographic examination with suspected organic involvement of the brain, and group 3 (control) consisted of 169 mentally and neurologically normal subjects. On the whole the incidence of various organic brain lesions was 8% in group 1, 41.5% in group 2, and 6.5% in control group, whatever the of the examinees or any other factors. Vascular diseases of the nervous system predominated in group 2 as against group 1, being 3.5 times more incident. No intracranial tumors were detected in controls; in schizophrenics computer tomographic signs of volumic brain lesions were detected in 1.5% of cases, being diagnosed more than 10 times more frequently than in group 2 patients.